He and Harlan were fighting pretty hard to keep the PAC together... Colorado left first, Arizona wanted to leave but couldn't unless Arizona St. was in the picture, some legislation rule in Arizona forced both teams to go to the same conference... dumb.
Since the President of ASU and Harlan worked together and failed, Arizona St. felt they owed it to allow Utah to piggyback on their coattails as a liferaft to get into the BIG12.
So Arizona couldn't get in with ASU and ASU basically said, we'll come if you take Utah as well. The rest is history.
I think ASU has embraced the conference. Utah has hated it since day 1 and still hate it today. I really do think that if Utah could work a financial agreement with a conference that would get them close to what they are making now or were making in the PAC... they would leave today.