Pretty cool development for the conference. The Pac-12 has two schools ditching the paper for the iPads. Free iPads for everyone (unless the athletes have to buy them, which would blow)!

It's Stanford and Washington going touchscreen. First the Stanford news.

Stanford Football today ushers in a new era with iPad playbooks for the 2012 season. With the start of the Cardinal's fall training camp, each Stanford player and coach is receiving an iPad outfitted with a digital playbook powered by Denver-based partner PlayerLync. Five professional teams in the NFL are currently equipped through the same partnership, and Stanford is proud to be the first in college football to take this leap forward in operational efficiency, cost reduction and environmental responsibility.

Then Washington.

Sarkisian said today UW is joining the trend of teams going digital with their playbooks. Players will get it all on an I-pad now.

— Bob Condotta (@bcondotta) August 6, 2012

I would not be surprised if the rest of the Pac-12 follows suit soon. I doubt Larry Scott wants a few conference members to enjoy these digital perks while others have to rely on a more custom standard. Expect a few more schools to make some public announcements.

Stanford's system is probably a little more super-duper special than everyone else, but that's the perks of being Stanford--you get a lot of cool stuff that you might one day utilize to its fullest potential, or otherwise ignore like everything else in your closet.