Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott warned that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge’s tentative decision that the show-cause penalty against former USC assistant football coach Todd McNair violated California law “would threaten the NCAA membership” of the organization’s four schools in the state if adopted.

“If California law prevents institutions in that state from honoring such commitments, it is hard to see how the Pac-12’s Member Universities in California could continue to meet the requirements of NCAA membership,” Scott wrote in a three-page sworn declaration filed in court Friday. “Thus, the Court’s tentative ruling would place at risk the competitive and scholarship opportunities that flow from NCAA participation for the Pac-12’s California Member Universities.”