“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with… There's no place like home.”
Wisdom from Dorothy….
She meant Kansas, so maybe Colorado is yearning east.
(One of my grandpas worked on the railroad in Kansas and Colorado, where he met my grandma.)
So, does this mean the rumor that was started weeks ago may actually be true?
Or, is it an ever evolving game of “eenie, meenie, mynie, moe”… with the Big 12 and PAC 12?
I take it as Colorado's never ending quest to be the smallest fish in biggest pond.
Over 90% of conference realignment rumors are false. This was one of the <10%.
Live look at the call down at conference HQ:
Any chance they’ll take Nebraska, too?
/j
Let’s try to throw in Rutgers in that deal too. Sell it as a natural east coast rival for West Virginia and don’t let them look at a map.
My hope is that this precipitates the big ten and SEC to merge and expand and basically 4x10 team divisions that play true round robin schedules and that way they can say they trimmed the fat. And have a weird ass playoff who cares.
Like, a western 10 of UW, Oregon, UT, A&M, UCLA, USC, OU, Arkansas, Mizzou, Nebraska
The Big Ten of 1990, the SEC of pre Arkansas
And an Eastern 10 of SCAR, FSU, Clemson, PSU, Rutgers, Maryland and 4 other schools that give you TV money.
And an independent ND
Every 2024 Big Ten and SEC school and then Oregon, Washington, Clemson, FSU, ND and then 4 more to round it out
TV execs can figure out scheduling. This would be better than the status quo, except for the left behinds, who would figure it out.
F ND
All bloggers yearning for a clean conference realignment. All decision makers yearning to keeping it an absolute mess. Guess who wins in the end?
If Nebraska left the Big 10 to join the Big 12, it would raise the academic profile of both conferences.
Is anyone surprised at this point?
Edit: with the way everyone is reacting around the PAC and CFB media space, it looks like this is the real deal. Over/under on years left for the PAC?
I’m guessing the Big12 goes after the Arizona schools and Utah, and the Big Ten eventually takes the the good/name brand schools remaining in the Pac12 - some combination of Oregon/Washington/Cal/Stanford.
Wazzu and Oregon State are probably screwed. The Pac12 probably becomes a mid major over the next 5-10 years - with schools like Fresno State, SDSU, Air Force, Boise, Colorado State, UNLV, and others joining with Wazzu, Oregon State, and others.
At least that’s my uneducated guess.
That sounds about right to me. Personally, the PAC 12 seems to be more prestigious than the Big 12 (regionally and academically). I thought that the PAC 12 would have been more aggressive with expansion and tried to "strike first".....but it looks like the Big 12 may survive.
I said when USC and UCLA announced they were leaving for the B1G, the PAC12 needed to make some moves to stay alive. SDSU should have been target #1. Moves after that are debatable, but standing at 10 is the last thing they should have done and it’s looking like it will bite them in the ass.
The smartest thing the Big 12 did was add BYU, UCF, Cincy, and Houston when OU and Texas announced their departure. It’s impossible to replace the likes of USC, UCLA, OU and Texas. But you can replace them in the aggregate. The quartet in the Big 12 doesn’t have the prestige of Texas or OU, but those teams have pretty consistently been winning 9+ games and been top 25 programs.
Sorry, but SDSU is a nothing burger. They would not have even helped.
Shut up!
That’s just not correct at all. SDSU keeps them in Southern California, is a great basketball program and has been pretty good at football too and boast a large student body of over 37,000 students. That’s a pretty significant addition to a conference that just lost out on the two LA schools.
Do they alone offset the loss of those two schools? absolutely not. But to act like it’s not a positive addition and wouldn’t have increased stability within the conference is silly.
Not saying it can’t happen, but it’s wild to think Power 5 schools could potentially be relegated to a Group of 5 conference.
Wouldn’t be the first time. Granted it was before G5/P5 became something that was widely talked about, but Tulane used to be in the SEC until 1966
Tulane, with 3, still has more SEC championships than both Kentucky (2) and Mississippi State (1). Hell, Georgia Tech is at 5.
Wow, I did not know that.
Don't know if Tulane counts - they were an independent in a time where there were many independents, and the line between major and minor was unclear. It's sorta likey saying Princeton and Harvard used to be Powers and are now FCS - it's true but gosh a whole lotta history happened.
This did happen more dramatically to Rice, SMU, TCU and Houston. Of which, 2 ended up in the Big 12, SMU seems like they may soon be in a PacX, and Rice sucked for a long time before the SWC dissolved. I guess technically we can include the late Big East schools of USF and UConn, as well as Cincy (the last of whom is now in the Big 12).
But I do think this is the most dramatic - Oregon State is a decent program who could legitimately win the Pac12 this year - they're the only contender that actually had a defense (granted, they decided to follow the Iowa blueprint on offense). The Pac12 may not be the strongest conference, but their teams have regularly featured in the top 10 and top 25, even outside of departing USC and UCLA. And yet, if the Pac12 dissolves, Oregon State and Wazzu are likely left out to dry.
And it never ceases to amaze me the Rutgers has a seat in the Super 2. RUTGERS! Of all the Big East schools, they ended up with the best position despite something like 3 good seasons in the last 30 years. All the rest of their conference mates are in the ACC and Big 12, and they're in the Big Ten. I'll never fully wrap my head around that.
To post a link, click the icon at the top off the Comment box that looks like a link in a chain.
Deion wants a bigger cowboy hat.
I'm an idiot, because I stared at this for 5 minutes thinking, "Aren't they already in the Big 12??"
Had totally forgotten they used to be in the Big 12 went to the Pac-10 and are now going back to the Big 12. Taking my overworked self to bed.
Don't feel bad. That was my initial thought too.
We will wake up one day to find the past ~20 years of conference realignment was all just a shared fever dream.
Rutgers goes back to the MAC!
Not quite...
The Big East is Back!
Those Thursday night classics were special
I wish.
There may be truth to this but the Big 12 has also made a habit out of throwing stuff like this out to pliable media members and then repeating it with little due diligence. The Pac-12 isn't doing great but I'm also not sold that a Big-12 with the highest-profile football member being Baylor or TCU is going to net CU much more in terms of player access or TV rights money. And they're no closer to TX than they are to CA, so it's one recruiting hotbed for another.
Bronx, you're showing your East Coast flyover geography bias. Driving Boulder to L.A. is 1023 miles, Boulder to Dallas is only 820 miles, (but to Houston is 1054 miles). But everything else you've said is spot on.
I have Colorado cousins, and they'd prefer the old rivalries with Nebraska and Oklahoma. Of course, they'd also prefer the days of Kordell Stewart.
I've got some bad news for your Colorado cousins concerning those rivalries...
I'm fine with NIL, but the unwieldy conference realignments are breaking college football. Nebraska/OU and Nebraska/Colorado were games I looked forward to. Losing traditional rivalries is losing what made college football great.
Yeah, I was more thinking of Houston vs. Dallas but you're right.
Colorado has always felt more like a Big 12 team than a Pac-12 team, like how Nebraska feels more Big 12 than Big 10
Texas has single handedly destroyed the BIG12 in so many ways. Beware SEC you dont know their destructive capability.
Colorado and Nebraska left because of them, then Texas leaves a weakened big12 that they created. Hilarious.
Big 12 has better markets, traditional rivalries for CU and the Big 12 is a significantly better basketball conference, which helps with TV rights money to an extent.
Pac12 football is now hanging on the reputation of Oregon and Washington. Can we really say they’re that much better than Baylor and TCU? Historically maybe but right now? Not to mention what you’re getting in that 2nd tier in the Big 12 is a significant step up from the PAC12.
I’d take the likes of Oklahoma State, Kansas St, BYU, Cincy, Houston and UCF over the rest of the PAC12 outside of Utah.
The basketball will be better, though I'm not sure how much that affects CU or the media rights to any significant degree. In terms of overall markets the Pac-12 and the Big 12 aren't that different unless we presuppose there won't be any interest in LA and SD without UCLA and USC. I don't know how many people in Texas root for TCU/Baylor/Texas Tech/Houston/etc., and it's not like Iowa St. or West Virginia are pulling in oodles of eyes. The Pac-12 still has Phoenix, Portland, SF/Oakland, and Seattle as their bigger markets, and they aren't competing for eyes like Okie St. and the various Texas schools will be with SEC-bound OU and Texas.
The attacks from the PAC against Colorado today give this story a whole lot of support. I doubt Thamel would be putting it out there if without good sources.
Yeah, Thamel is a legit source with real skin in the game to not publish BS. He's not a random person with a Twitter account trying to stir the pot. There's probably fire under the smoke here.
I stand corrected - apparently the vote happened and there's real momentum behind this. Colorado sorta makes sense as a Big 12 team but I still really don't get all the realignment activities going on.
It's pretty easy. The PAC12 doesn't have a media deal for next year and has stuck out in getting one for over a year. Administrators in the PAC would be negligent if they didn't explore their options. You really don't want to be last on the ship if they don't have enough lifeboats.
Definitely. I do think in the end the Pac-12 will get a deal done that's in the ballpark of the Big 12's media deal but I can see CU not wanting to deal with the uncertainty.
I hate the new Big 12, which now stands at 13 teams. BYU and WVU and UCF as conference-mates? Colorado would rather be a part of that?
Admittedly, it is a powerful basketball conference, and will be even better if the Arizona addition goes through as rumored.
Are BYU/WVU/UCF worse as conference mates than Arizona/Wazzu/Cal? The Big 12 may be lacking on premier programs, but the Pac12 doesn’t look much better in that regard and the Big 12 certainly appears more stable with the top two remaining PAC12 schools actively lobbying the B1G for membership.
