Dr. Edward Ray has done some wonderful things for Oregon State. He built massive buildings, ushered the campus in Corvallis through a new era, provided solid leadership, cared deeply, and on Friday he ensured that he will leave with his reputation intact.

Ray announced in an email that he will leave his post in the summer of 2020.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott should follow suit.

That’s the most polite way to put it after watching the conference fall woefully behind during Scott’s watch. And also, after learning this week that the commissioner appears to have misled the public in the wake of last season’s Pac-12 football instant-replay scandal involving conference Senior Vice President, Woodie Dixon.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News published an alarming letter from three former conference officials this week. The letter, sent late last year via certified mail, was addressed to Scott and Pac-12 Director of Officiating, David Coleman. It indicates that Dixon’s clumsy foray into the instant-replay world was not an isolated incident, as Scott repeatedly claimed.

Fred Gallagher, a former Pac-12 replay official, told The Mercury News that both Dixon and Coleman entered his replay booth during games to ask about replay decisions and sideline conduct situations.

It backs a version of events that I reported in November, surrounding the departure of former head of officiating Tony Corrente. Multiple sources indicated that Corrente, a well-respected NFL official, left the Pac-12 midseason in 2014 because Dixon, who has no formal training in officiating, often meddled.

Why do that?

Was the Pac-12 steering the outcome of games?

Was it interested in pushing the blue-chip programs the conference felt had the best chance to make a College Football Playoff?

Sorry, I can’t help but wonder. That’s what interference does. It makes you question everything, just like some of the football coaches who found themselves on the wrong end of strange instant-replay decisions over the years. And given that Scott didn’t bother to write the officials back for months after he received the letter, it suggests he foolishly hoped it would just go away.

It’s not going away.

Not if Scott doesn’t care to address it.

Not if the Pac-12 CEO Group closes its eyes, and wishes for it.

Not if Sibson -- the outside entity hired to conduct a review of Pac-12 officiating -- does its homework.

This is just beginning. The only way for the conference to crawl out of the hole it has dug itself, is to flush Scott and move forward with fresh leadership. And what I’m talking about now is vision and strength that is going to have to come from within the Pac-12 CEO Group.

Dr. Ray was one of Scott’s staunchest supporters in that group -- no, check that, he was THE most staunch supporter. He was among the presidents/chancellors who hired Scott a decade ago, and Ray stuck with Scott as the conference fell behind. Not because he’s got a soft spot for Scott, but because Oregon State believed the commissioner when he over-promised, and forgave him when he under-delivered.

Scott had three old-guard supporters among the CEO Group -- Ray, UCLA chancellor Gene Block and Arizona State president Michael Crow. Ray announced his exit on Friday. UCLA is amid a massive Centennial Campaign fund-raising venture, and the whisper is Block, 70, could retire after its conclusion as well sometime in 2020.

That leaves Crow alone.

And what is one vote when 11 others in the room can plainly see the issue?

USC appointed Carol Folt as its new president this week as well. Folt is fresh off a stint at the University of North Carolina, where she dealt with an academic-fraud scandal. There’s a noticeable shift in dynamic among Scott’s bosses, for sure.

Scott gets a lot of heat for his lavish spending. He’s a first-cabin guy, not unlike some of the other CEOs of the corporate world. But that act doesn’t play well with conference members struggling to fund expenditures that would keep them competitive with the other Power Five Conferences.

Scott also justifies his exorbitant $4.8 million annual salary and the bloated salaries of his inner circle of lieutenants by pointing out that he not only oversees the Pac-12, but also, the Pac-12 Network.

Two jobs, one guy.

“We’re actually a media company,” Scott famously says.

It’s a convenient narrative. High-ranking conference sources with knowledge of the budgets of both the Pac-12 and Pac-12 Networks told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the conference routinely shifted salaries between the two entities during Scott’s tenure.

The accounting maneuver created an internal rift in the downtown San Francisco headquarters when employees who performed work for the Pac-12 Conference -- an entity that enjoys non-profit status -- suddenly found their salaries absorbed into the budget of the Pac-12 Network.

Said one high-ranking Pac-12 official: "Larry operates in a veil of secrecy in how he manages the Pac-12 Conference budget… he has at his discretion, and under his authority, to assign expenses in whatever budget he wants.

“It’s a peculiar way of allocating budgets and it creates an odd culture. The conference administrative staff insinuates themselves in network business they had no familiarity with.”

That underscores the blurred lines of authority in the instant-replay officiating scandal, doesn’t it?

Further, Scott’s willingness to shield Dixon, the man at the center of the instant-replay fiasco, is puzzling. The commissioner should have fired Dixon on the spot for interfering in a game decision. Instead, Scott went to a defensive stance and protected his fellow Harvard-educated lawyer.

Not a hill I’d die on. But that’s right where Scott is.

The Pac-12 is a mess.

The solution, introduced by Scott and championed by the Pac-12 CEO Group, is to seek a $750 million cash bailout by selling equity in a newly formed media company. It’s a desperate play, but lets face it, the Pac-12 is in a desperate position and will fall further behind if nothing is done.

Conference members have to feel like they’re in a generational dilemma. Fire Scott now and risk the appearance to potential investors that the house is in disarray? Or make a move on Scott now, hire someone with credibility, and send a message that things have turned for the better?

Ray isn’t leaving today. He’s leaving in 15 months or so.

The clock is ticking for Scott, too.