Just when it seemed public pressure on Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott couldn’t get more intense, along come voices from his past to add context and stoke embers.

Three former Pac-12 athletic directors, Chris Hill (Utah), Bill Moos (Washington State) and Greg Byrne (Arizona), have gone public recently with comments critical of Scott’s lifestyle and leadership style.

Moos told The Oregonian’s John Canzano that Scott “is a lavish guy; he likes extravagance … Larry likes to go first cabin.”

Hill talked about being silenced when raising concerns about conference operations.

Byrne explained to a Tucson radio station that “there wasn’t a lot of concern with what we had to say.”

Even for a conference that has quadruple-bottomed in the past year — the worst bowl performance ever, the worst March Madness performance ever, multiple basketball programs implicated by the FBI, and a football officiating scandal centered on the general counsel — this public criticism of a sitting commissioner is stunning.

When was the last time we heard an ex-Big Ten AD with unflattering statements about Jim Delany, or a former SEC AD skewering Greg Sankey — much less three of them?

Hasn’t happened and, most likely, won’t ever happen.

But the Pac-12 is different. Sometimes, different is good. In this case, though, different is bad.

Before you start clenching fists and grinding teeth and signing the petition to fire Scott — it has 4,000 signatures and counting — know this:

Blame for the system that led to the ADs speaking out against Scott should be laid at the feet of the presidents and chancellors.

It’s no different than Scott’s salary. Don’t fault him for making what he can make; fault the bosses who allow him to make it. Likewise, don’t fault Scott for a flawed internal dynamic; fault the bosses who allowed it to take root.

Time for a history lesson.

Scott was hired, in the spring of 2009, by a group of 10 chancellors and presidents deeply frustrated by an undervalued TV deal and lack of revenue compared to their peers in the Big Ten and SEC.

They were intent on overhauling the way the conference operated against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving media landscape:

Rights fees for live sports were soaring, athletic-related expenses were climbing, campus debt was mounting, and they didn’t want to miss the chance for a momentous cash grab when the conference’s media deal expired in the summer of 2012.

They hired Scott because of his success generating revenue for the Women’s Tennis Association, gave him the authority to make sweeping change, then went back to worrying about student protests and budget crunches and rogue deans.

Keys to the conference in hand, Scott consolidated power and marginalized the athletic directors. Essentially, he ran the Pac-12 like a professional league: He was Roger Goodell, answering to the owners (presidents/chancellors) and not the general managers (ADs).

And the owners were wholly comfortable with that arrangement, especially after Scott added Utah and Colorado, nearly grabbed Texas, signed a whopper of a media rights deal with ESPN and Fox and formed a revolutionary, wholly owned media company, installing himself as chief executive.

When Scott needed approval for something, he went to the presidents, and they allowed that dynamic to continue through the era of momentous change. Scott managed up, and did so deftly.

There was just one problem: A commissioner with no background in college sports was reporting to presidents and chancellors with little-to-zero conception of college sports.

The athletic directors, many of them lifers in collegiate athletics and armed with deep institutional knowledge, were squeezed out of the decision-making process. Scott had the full backing of the bosses and served as chief executive of not one but two entities: the Pac-12 Conference and Pac-12 Networks. (They have separate governing boards but, for tax purposes, report as one entity. )

As the reconfigured conference matured, frustration on the front lines mounted … with conference expenditures … with modest distribution from the Pac-12 Networks … with the lack of a DirecTV contract … with backlash from all the night football games … with lost ground in the media-rights game.

Meanwhile, the athletic directors, increasingly concerned with the state of the conference, remained marginalized.

When Hill asked questions, according to the Oregonian, he was told by Scott: “You’re lucky for what you get.”

When Byrne and others were “concerned with the financial model,” he told the radio station, “we would raise questions” but “there wasn’t a lot of concern with what we had to say.”

(Might their voices, if heard, have made a difference? The conference surely would have been better off with healthy discussions.)

Then a funny thing happened:

The ADs with all that institutional knowledge and all those built-up frustrations left the conference. Moos bolted Washington State for Nebraska, Byrne left Arizona for Alabama, and Hill retired.

In their new lives, it seems, they no longer feel compelled to remain silent.

(Asked to elaborate on the “lack of concern for what we had to say,” Byrne declined to comment for this article.)

Meanwhile, new presidents and chancellors have entered the conference: Half of the current group has come aboard in just the past four years.

Their point of comparison isn’t 2007. It’s today, it’s this moment, it’s Scott flying around in a private jet and the Pac-12 Networks stagnating and Big Ten schools collecting $20 million more per year in conference distributions.

And a few of them have … gasp! … spoken out.

Cal’s Carol Christ fired the first salvo about conference expenses last year, telling the Hotline “you tend to elaborate your own organization rather than understanding that it should be as small and efficient as possible for the benefit of the members.”

Washington State’s Kirk Schulz has expressed concerns over revenue on multiple occasions.

Colorado Chancellor Phil DiStefano, the new chair of the Pac-12’s board of directors — the boss of the bosses, so to speak — told the Hotline that all options for raising revenue should be considered, including an equity sale of the Pac-12 Networks or a renegotiation of the contracts with ESPN and Fox.

“There are challenges in the next three-to-five years … I don’t have the answers, but I think we need to ask those questions.”

Presidents and chancellors asking questions instead of stamping rubber? That’s new.

In that same interview, published in September, DiStefano was asked what changes he planned to implement as board chair.

“I want to continue with more collaboration between the presidents, athletic directors and the commissioner,” he said. “It’s important to have that type of collaboration, so we’re all hearing the same thing. I’m a huge believer in collaboration.”

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