My loyalties are a little divided but not completely. I study the Pac-12 because the teams I root for have been playing the rest of the conference for a long time. in the process, I get to know a few of the opposition's players, especially if they are quality players. After a couple of years, watching them play a few times arouses my curiosity to a point where I hope they play well for the sake of the game. That means I will root for his team because it usually results in a better performance on his part when everyone plays well, but when he's gone, my interest falls back to almost zero by comparison. In the one instance of Stanford, Andrew Luck was one of my favorite players and I found myself pulling for Stanford because Luck was playing. The next thing you know, I can practically name off their depth chart.
There are also some instances where my sentiments for a Pac-12 team could impact personnel in the opposite direction. I have admired Chris Petersen, Boise's HC for almost a decade. However now I find myself in conflict with him because he is now the head coach at the University of Washington who's players I hope become violently ill on their next flight to Eugene or LA. Aside from that, it's on a case per case basis. WSU is a team I would root for because I like their coach a lot. Colorado has a new head coach that I also think very highly of. I wish them both well. Utah I've been watching for a while because they pulled out some dramatic wins on the national stage as underdogs, but I don't feel much for them otherwise. The Arizona schools I could give two shits for. The Cal Bears I could give only one shit for. Both LA teams were my childhood heroes at one time or another so it's kind of a sentimental thing i harbor for both the Trojans and Bruins. Having lived here in Oregon for 25 years, the Ducks have grown on me and have become my most favorite team and their story is a great one still in progress... Oregon State is the underdog nobody expects to win which finds me rooting for them as the local team nobody expects much from... but they win in that situation quite often.
The conference as a whole doesn't do much for me as a conference, but I like seeing their teams prevail because it makes the Ducks look better when they are atop a stronger conference. Also I have Larry Scott as one of my great heroes for the way he has pulled the Pac up from their former image of USC and the 9 dwarfs. He took over in the TV contract department and really did a hell of a job marketing their image. He's taken on the role of the most pioneering of all conference head honchos even beyond Mike Slive of the SEC which is no small matter because the next conference in line lags miles behind the two front runners in terms of their influence over the direction of the college game. I can only think of a couple of posters that actually root for a team because they play in the Pac-12, however they are vague impressions, nothing like the sort of "fanship" I see sickenly posted often by too many SEC posters... even to the point of rooting for their own teams worst rival. I was never anyone's hater but around the 1000th time I heard "5 NCs in a row" repeated ad nauseum, I was pretty turned off by it. If it wasn't for several SEC posters in here, I'd think there was some sort of ego disease that had become rampant in the south to the point where nothing outside of the Southeast even mattered. I do appreciate the input of the few who have grown up and demonstrated maturity and restraint. You know who you are.
