“Like Rick, I put as my top priority the experience that our student-athletes have and the visibility that our student-athletes have. And, like Rick, I believe that moving to the Big 12 Conference is going to give our student-athletes much more exposure than what they were getting previously.”—Colorado University chancellor Phil DeStephano

Which means George shared with Rick and Phil the framework for his excellent streaming adventure and they found comfort in the tried and true linear of ESPN and Fox and abandoned ship.

 

Pac-12 says it will 'immediately' pursue expansion after completing media rights deal

Pac-12 says it will 'immediately' pursue extinction after bungling media rights deal

 It has come to my attention that morning has broken like the first morning and blackbirds have spoken like the first morn.

Deeper and Deeper

The league will first seek other Pac-12 members to join, and if none do so, the Big 12 would add a Group of Five school to reach an even number of members in 2024, sources said.

The Group of Five candidates being considered, if needed, by the Big 12 are UConn, Memphis, San Diego State and UNLV, sources said. SMU also is a possibility, but the Mustangs are considered a longshot because the Big 12 already has four schools in Texas.

“The odds of remaining at 13 schools in 2024 is slim,” a source said. “We need to get to an even number for 2024, and our long-term vision is 16.”

That, re-posted here earlier, is from Brett McMurphy, who knows his shit. Given all that I have written about Brett Yormark, especially today, if I were a Big XII prez and Yormark told me to run head first into a brick wall, I'd say, "How many times would you like, SIR?!" But McMurphy's law here seems to me ripe for reversing. They just got Colorado for crissakes, a PAC 12-year resident. From other reporting Yormark has his laser trained on UConn. "Yessir!", would be my response. But of the other candidates, I know at least one is wrong. B.Y. has no interest anymore in SDSU. He wants to be wanted and he's not courting, other than Connecticut. Adela sniffed him away and now she is golden handcuffed to the Mountain. I think he's going to get Hairy Boner and I think Hairy Boner's prez, the voluble Bobby Robbins, is a straight shooter from the South who would relish bus trips to Lubbock rather than plane trips to Starbucks, but UA is it out of the remaining PAC schools. And Tucson is not in the Pacific time zone. 

I want for B.Y. the first nationwide conference and I don't see him getting there from here. He is not enamored with Oregon or Washington because they too looked down their noses at him. B.Y. wants to be wanted, not needed, and I think that is a great posture. But. But Memphis and UNLV, if they are indeed on B.Y.'s target list, are, to my mind, shooting too low, and, of course, they're not on the Left Coast. What about Oregon State and Washington State? They fit the B.Y.'s culture and would be thrilled to join a going concern rather than sit on deck of the Titanic Conference. Add UConn now to get to 14 teams and then let the remaining PAC schools twist and writhe a little longer. UConn, OSU and Wazoo would give him the Great Nationwide Conference that is his ambition and manifestly his destiny.

Dear Adela,

Colorado is gone: Now 

the Pac 12 Conference

NEEDS San Diego State 

to stay afloat

Big 12 is stealing one program and more could leave if media deal is not reached soon 

 

How goes it back on the Mountain? You know the Big Yormark doesn't want to dance with you anymore. Once he did but you threw your high heels at him. Now B.Y. wants to be wanted, not needed. You had your chance, he has moved on. Now your everlasting "needs" you, but his trust fund is underwater. And he still doesn't want you. You're so goddamned dumb that you might have taken him up on the offer anyway but then you lashed yourself to the Mountain in a set of $34M golden handcuffs. So how goes it back on the Mountain, Adela?

OF COURSE! 😂 👏

They ought to rename this thing the B.Y. Conference.

Sources: Big 12 Eyeing Arizona, Arizona State, Utah; Will Add 1-3 More Schools After Colorado

The league will first seek other Pac-12 members to join, and if none do so, the Big 12 would add a Group of Five school to reach an even number of members in 2024, sources said.

The Group of Five candidates being considered, if needed, by the Big 12 are UConn, Memphis, San Diego State and UNLV, sources said. SMU also is a possibility, but the Mustangs are considered a longshot because the Big 12 already has four schools in Texas.

“The odds of remaining at 13 schools in 2024 is slim,” a source said. “We need to get to an even number for 2024, and our long-term vision is 16.”

Brilliant

The other conferences might as well just give up. Nobody’s a match for Brett Yormark. Next: “Penn State, North Carolina to Join Big XII”? 😂

🙄🤭

July 29, 2022: When pressed at Pac-12 Media Day about potentially adding Big 12 teams in an expansion bid, Kliavkoff says: "With respect to the Big 12 being open for business, I appreciate that. We haven't decided if we're going shopping there or not yet."

The Boat Sunk the Water

23m ago

Justin Williams·

Staff Writer, Cincinnati

Pac-12 might be falling to pieces

 

The Pac-12 could have been a disruptor. Now it might be falling to pieces

The Pac-12 could have been a disruptor. Instead, the conference is left scrambling, a prisoner of its own device.

...

But in August 2021, the Pac-12 announced it would not pursue expansion, citing “the current competitive strength and cohesiveness of our 12 universities.” (Ooof.)

Official!

Colorado returning to Big-12 in 2024: Live updates, news and reaction

College football realignment continued Thursday with Colorado announcing it will move from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 in 2024.

The university’s Board of Regents unanimously approved a resolution Thursday allowing Colorado to join the Big 12 effective for the 2024-25 academic year.

The Big 12’s board of presidents and chancellors had already voted unanimously on Wednesday night to accept Colorado as a member of the conference, a person familiar with the Big 12’s discussions confirmed to The Athletic.

The school would officially become a Big 12 member in the summer of 2024 at the conclusion of the Pac-12’s current media rights deal. With Colorado’s addition, the Big 12 would become a 13-member conference and the Pac-12 would be left with nine remaining schools.

Yormark

Getting another Pac-12 school to jump on board would be a triumph, and more basketball-focused Big 12 additions probably belong on the back burner for these next few weeks.

But here’s the thing about Yormark: What he wants to sell his members on is UConn.

If Colorado is the only Pac-12 member coming in, don’t be surprised if Yormark goes all-in on UConn. All the political capital he’s gaining in the eyes of his league presidents, chancellors and ADs from pulling off this Colorado move? Conference sources believe that’s where he wants to spend it.

…

The Big 12 has had communication with Oregon and Washington in the past year. For them, Colorado departing still might not move the needle enough. And that might not bother Yormark much. He doesn’t want these schools reluctantly backing into the Big 12 solely because of a disappointing TV deal. He wants members who seriously buy what he’s selling.

Isn't that refreshing? We want you to want us. We don't want you if you don't.

In UConn, Yormark sees something that other Big 12 leaders don’t. They think football first and have their doubts that UConn football can become relevant. The recent track record — 27-83 since 2013 — is hard to ignore. They see the success in men’s and women’s basketball as undeniably attractive, but it’s less easy to get them to buy the pitch that UConn adds value for this league, in part because these presidents, chancellors and ADs have spent the past year locked in on trying to land Power 5 football schools.

But Yormark sees an entry point into New York City. He sees a dominant basketball conference and big-time events at Madison Square Garden. He sees a future in which the Big 12 makes more money down the road by decoupling its media rights package and selling its basketball rights separately. Conference sources say he sees a sort of buy-low opportunity here, a bet that the Big 12 investing in UConn over the rest of the decade will drive up the conference’s value. For him, there’s no hesitation. There’s real conviction.

…

Remember, the Big 12 was on the brink in the summer of 2021. [TWO fucking years ago.] Don’t forget that moment in sizing up this current one. The conference was in a vulnerable spot, so much so that former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby traveled to Montana to visit Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff and discuss a partnership or merger. The Pac-12 wasn’t interested.

The Pac-12 could’ve swooped in and swiped Baylor, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas Tech. Had it seized the opportunity, the Big 12 would be toast. But Pac-12 presidents couldn’t be convinced. Too many of them didn’t love the fit. They instead preferred the good vibes and handshake pacts of the short-lived Alliance with the Big Ten and ACC.

After living out that existential crisis for six weeks, the eight remaining Big 12 members locked arms and invited the four best available expansion candidates — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF— and moved in a new direction together.

Bowlsby offered to stay on through the new members’ transition into the conference. The Big 12’s board took a risk, preferring to launch a search for a new commissioner in the summer of 2022. The search committee took another risk with a nontraditional candidate in Yormark, the New York businessman who brought minimal college athletics experience to the table but excited them with all the ideas for innovation he proposed. The Big 12 needed a bold vision for its brand and future without Oklahoma and Texas, and Yormark took over a league that’s more willing to be bold.

That alignment is essential. Over the past year, there haven’t been any whispers about one or two Big 12 schools standing in the way of expansion to protect their own interests. They’ve given Yormark the authority to chase these ambitious moves. And look at what he’s bringing home.

… More Power 5 additions will garner unanimous support. If those aren’t coming next, those conference sources believe Yormark will want his board to get on board with UConn.

That’s how Yormark operates. Adding Colorado is a significant feat, another validating vote of confidence in the conference and its future, but don’t expect much of a victory lap from the commissioner. He and his regime have moved quickly in his first year on the job, stacking as many improvements and achievements as he can as fast as he can, and he’s not slowing down soon.

Colorado appears to be coming. And then the Big 12 will be on to the next one.

McConnell Has Fallen Three Times in 2023

1) In February in Finland

2) In March at Waldorf Astoria: concussion, broken ribs

3) In July, this month, getting off plane at D.C. airport.

Additionally in June, at a press conference, McConnell couldn’t hear reporters’ questions that other senators present could hear clearly. And of course Wednesday the speech catatonia.

Adam Silver Doesn’t Like It Either!

“I don’t like when stars do that because it’s just like what does every other player do? So because you’re a good player, like you just don’t have to show up?

“Regardless of how good of a player you are, the NBA, it’s a privilege. If you’re a free agent, then you can choose where you’re going to go. That’s the business, But when you’re not, and you sign a deal, man, that’s part of the business, bro. If you get traded somewhere, you gotta go play.

“And this started with like James and Ben and all these guys doing this. It’s bad for the league.

“But, yeah, it’s a scary dynamic when stars start acting like this. And I’m not a big fan of it, I’ve got to be honest with you. And I’m a big fan of Damian. Everyone knows. …”-Minnesota guard Austin Rivers on the Damian Lillard situation.

I agree with everything Rivers said. I still want Dame.

I have written this previously but today it deserves re-posting. The job that Brett Yormark has done at the Big XII...He has done the impossible, nothing less than transform the-conference-most-likely-to-get-contracted into the It conference. EVERYbody wants in when NObody wanted in. Consider:

-They lost Texas A&M who wanted to escape Texas.

-Then they lost Texas and Oklahoma to the same SEC the "Aggies" were in.

-The PAC was the Glamour Boy, privileged and rich, all decked out in ruby and gold and sapphire and emerald and amethyst, with the patina of old school Ivy on the Bay. They thumbed their noses at, really everyone besides the ACC, but especially at the rubes on the Plains. Texas Tech? Oklahoma State? Kansas State? As if. Just not our kind. 

The Big XII's losses would have killed any other conference and just about killed this one. But here came Yormark, the Great Disruptor, all alpha predator who didn't know his place and BAM!

-BAM! BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, Central Florida.

-BAM! Regular season games in Mexico City.

-BAM! Jumping the line and snagging a TV deal that kneecapped the Bling Boys.

-BAM! Raiding the PAC! for Colorado and another major media market.

-BAM! The ambition to be the first nation-wide conference. All they need is one more PAC school.

I never would have dreamed that I would say this but now, like everyone else, I want in. I want my beloved Pitt "Panthers" in the Big XII. It won't happen, it can't happen until 2036, but that is a mark of what Brett Yormark has done.

How is it that the PAC hired TWO dud commissioners and the Big XII hired Brett Yormark?

"But Colorado? … He really can’t keep Colorado?"

Stew is all Left Coast. I highly recommend his whole article. That's the money shot up there. USC and UCLA were one thing, like Texas and Oklahoma, like Oregon and Washington would be. "But Colorado?"

Mandel: Colorado rejoining Big 12 would be a

product of Pac-12 negligence

 

 

In 2010, Colorado opted to flee the Big 12 for what was then the Pac-10 amid fears that Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma were about to leave for other leagues and decimate the Buffs’ conference. Which they eventually did.

Thirteen years later, Colorado’s board is expected to vote Thursday to rejoin the Big 12.

Think about just how many things the Pac-12 had to get wrong over those 13 years to arrive at this precarious moment where it may soon be down to just nine members. ...

Former commissioner Larry Scott may have set the Pac-12’s tumble in motion with his combo of arrogance and aloofness, but Kliavkoff, his successor, has now rolled the boulder right up to the edge of the cliff with a unique cocktail of naivete and negligence.

It’s admittedly debatable whether Kliavkoff could have done anything to prevent USC and UCLA from leaving for the much-richer Big Ten.[But Stew neglects to say that when it happened George was unreachable by phone in Montana or Wyoming.]

But Colorado? … He really can’t keep Colorado?

How demoralizing must it be for a school that’s gone 27-76 in conference play to have the leverage to singlehandedly destabilize your league. ...

...

...it does genuinely appear that Kliavkoff — the same guy who once formed an “Alliance” with the ACC and Big Ten based on “an agreement between three gentlemen” — did not see this one coming. Had he even a hint Colorado might leave this week, he probably would not have said or done any of the following at his conference’s football media day last Friday:

• When asked whether it was a “major concern” that the Big 12 may poach his schools, he called it “not a concern,” said that realignment “will come to an end for this cycle” and that “the truth is, we have bigger fish to fry.” 

Ho ho ho.

As realignment sagas go, this one is uniquely bizarre. In a vacuum, losing Colorado would seem entirely insignificant to the conference. ...[Colorado] would not be considered “additive” if the league were starting from scratch today.

And yet, because of its own continued ineptitude, CU leaving is a huuuuuge deal for the Pac-12.

For one thing, it makes the conference look even weaker than it already does. Since taking over the Big 12 a little over a year ago, commissioner Brett Yormark has outmaneuvered his Pac-12 counterpart at every turn. ...He’s spent a full year courting the Four Corners schools and is ultimately set to reel in Colorado in part because he’d locked in assurances from ESPN and Fox that any Pac-12 additions would receive the same $31.7 million-per-year share as his current members come 2025. Whereas Kliavkoff has yet to deliver his own members assurance of any TV numbers of any kind...

That is HUUUUUGE!

But of course, the much, much bigger deal will be if Colorado’s departure becomes the domino that causes other Pac-12 schools to leave. ...

...this being the Pac-12, never gamble on it acting rationally.

 Personally, I think "competently" would be a better ending adverb to this article.

Alive from Miami Beach! How sweet it is!

BIX XII GRABS COLORADO!

Big 12 votes unanimously to accept Colorado 

as new member, sources say

 A year ago the PAC was a 12. Now, it's a IX, and CU's defection has the potential, a probability, to nudge the some or all three of the other so-called Four Corner schools, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State, into the the new go-getter conference in America, the Big XII. Congratulations to Brett Yormark and an F report card to George Kliavkoff, the commissioner who presided over the loss of the Los Angeles schools and now another major gem in Colorado, and the dissolution of the PAC as a Power Five conference. All hail the Big XII, the new conference superpower!

Iz

Bret Stephens has a screw loose.  You read his latest column and you'd swear he is saying what all others are saying, that Israel as a democratic Jewish state is doomed. But then:

...the Israeli Knesset’s vote to approve contentious legislation limiting the power of the judiciary. This is a true disaster for Israel not because the bill is “anti-democratic” — if anything, it is all too democratic, at least in the purely majoritarian sense of the word — 

So it needs to protect minorities, yes. ...No,

...because it risks depriving the country of its most potent weapon: the fierce loyalty of its most productive and civically engaged citizens.

With those citizens — the tech entrepreneurs, the air force reservists, the world-famous novelists and doctors — Israel stands in a league with Switzerland and Singapore: a boutique nation, small and imperfect but widely associated with excellence in dozens of fields.

Without those citizens, Israel is in the club with Hungary and Serbia: a little country, insular and pettily corrupt and good mainly at nursing its grievances.

The judicial legislation is too democratic, majoritarian uber alles. The bill is a disaster for Israel, Stephens argues, because the Ashkenazi techo-intelligentsia oligarchical minority is losing its historical hold on power to,

...Israel’s least productive and engaged citizens — ultra-Orthodox Jews who want military exemptions and welfare, ...the bigoted, the corrupt, the dependent and the extreme. ...settlers who want to be a law unto themselves, ideologues in think tanks — abusing their temporary majority to secure exemptions, entitlements, immunities and other privileges that mock the idea of equality under law.

...

Israel’s demographic challenges are well known...

Oh! I recognize "democraphic challenges" as code for "undersirables" swamping white Americans, sorry, Ashkenazi Jews. So Brett wants, in the popular phrase, "monitory democracy" to protect "the most productive members of society", not the loafers and welfare cheats. We want to keep those low-lifes down. This is becoming Ashkenazi-racist by Brett. Maybe Israel needs its own Buck v Ball and the Israeli Supremes could authorize forced sterilization of these fecund, lazy Negroes, excuse me again, Mezrahi.

...

 Perhaps because of the long history of Jewish dispossession, many Israelis seem keenly attuned to the danger. A poll last week of 734 Israeli founders and C.E.O.s of start-ups and managing directors of venture capital firms found that more than two-thirds were taking steps to move their assets outside Israel in anticipation of the new law. There’s also been a reported surge in Israelis seeking second passports. Israel’s demographic challenges are well known, but there’s a challenge within the challenge: If the people who made Israel the Start-up Nation are heading for the exits, the long-term basis of Israel’s power will erode. Prayers won’t save Israel if it lacks a world-class economy to sustain a regionally dominant military.

Stephens prefers oligarchy to democracy, which can be too-too; he confuses democracy or, in contemporary usage, monitory democracy, with mobocracy. Unmonitored democracy, one without checks and balances from some other official body, is majoritarian mobocracy.

That’s not to say that the idea of judicial reform is meritless, at least in the abstract. Israel has an unusually powerful judiciary that over several decades arrogated powers to itself that were never democratically given and that elsewhere are considered strictly political, such as adjudging the “reasonableness” of ministerial appointments and actions....

"Never democratically given" should be a point in the Israeli judiciary's favor according to a critical mass of Stephens' argument. ...But he argues that the "reforms" would make the judiciary too democratic--bad.

...Israel has no written constitution clearly delineating, as America’s does, the separation of powers. And it has no meaningful institutional check on the executive and legislature other than the Supreme Court. It is the court that guarantees that human, civil, women’s and minority rights are respected and that parliamentary majorities can’t simply do as they please.

Right! It does! The reasonableness standard is unreasonable in my opinion but it kinda sorta served as the monitor for mobocracy's excesses.

So that's BAD, right?...Or no, that's good, since he doesn't like majoritarian democracy; the new legislation makes the court too democratic without the monitor function.

...

But the point of the legislation isn’t reform, much less consensus. It’s an exercise in raw political power ...carried out by legislators bent on trying to achieve legal impunity from a court that has tried to hold them to account. Israel wouldn’t be in this national meltdown if Netanyahu weren’t trying to wangle out of his criminal indictment by holding on to power

A statesman sacrifices himself for his nation. A demagogue sacrifices his nation for himself.

...

...the new dividing line in Israel, as in so many other democracies, is no longer between liberals and conservatives. It’s between liberals and illiberals. It’s between those who believe that democracy encompasses a set of norms, values and habits that respect and enforce sharp limits on power and those who will use their majorities to do whatever they please in matters of politics so that they may eventually do whatever they please in matters of law.

But then, like the drunk fumbling to stick the key in the lock of the front door, Brett realizes that "more light is needed here" and arrives at a stupendous, happy ending:

Israelis have a penchant for hyperbole, and this week has brought a lot of lamentations about the “end of Israeli democracy.” That’s an unwarranted counsel of despair as well as an overstatement: Israeli democracy has survived worse.

My God, Brett, don't keep us hanging! When has Israeli democracy survived worse and, in your judgment, I'm still mightily confused, should Israeli democracy survive again, or, you're among frenemies, do you really prefer a continuation of elite Ashkenazi rule. Inquiring minds want to know. And can't figure out what the fuck it is you want.

Russia-Ukraine War: U.S. Says Main Thrust 

of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Begun

 

‘This is the big test’: U.S. officials...

The main thrust of Ukraine’s nearly two-month-old counteroffensive is now underway in the country’s southeast, two Pentagon officials said on Wednesday, with thousands of reinforcements pouring into the grinding battle, many of them trained and equipped by the West and, until now, held in reserve.

Hard to watch another human being at such a vulnerable moment.

Oh my God, Mitch McConnell Went Catatonic!

 

Sinead O’Connor Dead at 56

O’Connor, a virulent opponent of the Catholic Church, converted to Islam in 2018 and changed her name to Shuhada Sadaqat, while still performing under her birth name. O’Connor rocketed to fame in 1990 with her recording of Nothing Compares to U which became the global number one best-selling song. The music video put a face to the voice and became as well-known as the song.

No cause of death has been given although O’Connor was bipolar and had experienced suicidal ideation in the past. Her son Shane, died at age 17 last year. No sense in being Irish without tragedy. Rest in peace.

I wish to have speaks about Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was the swing vote in the Supremes startling redistricting decision earlier this term, and in the latest major decision on Affirmative Action it was a line in Kavanaugh's opinion, that if Harvard wished to admit more minority students constitutionally all it need do was end its "white Affirmative Action" legacy admissions policy. Other elite universities, Johns Hopkins and most recently Wesleyan, noted Kavanaugh's sentence and ended legacy admissions. Harvard has not, but Kavanaugh's line prompted a law suit by a coalition of civil rights groups and now the Education Department has opened an investigation. Legacy admissions, gray discrimination, are on their way out, thanks in large part to Justice Kavanaugh.

I just watched about 20 mins of Powell's press conference and an AP reporter asked the pertinent question, "How much is inflation at 3% hurting people?" and, following up, "Is getting inflation to 2% worth the cost of "softening" (i.e. higher unemployment) the labor force?" Powell acknowledged that historically higher unemployment would likely result but said that "high" inflation hurts everyone. 

It seems to me, and from their questions I think to some of the reporters, that this 2% goal is too rigid. A Wall Street Journal reporter asked why a pause today wasn't warranted given June's sparkly inflation report? Because it wasn't 2% (annualized) and because it was just one report. Powell deflected projection questions, e.g., if the next two months data ahead of the September Fed meeting are as the last two months' have been. He seems focused on getting inflation to 2% annually come what may. Do not like this.

WHAT “rapid inflation”?

Fuck YOU, Powell.

“Flood Watch”. Holy hell.

The PAC Man

This is an extended excerpt deep dive into Colorado's schizophrenia by the only pencil in America who could do it, the incomparable Jon Wilner. Wilner knows the PAC in granular detail. Key in on CU's culture.

2. Colorado’s situation is as complex as the map is simple.

The campus is not located on the West Coast or fixed in the Pacific Time Zone (even for half the year). In fact, it’s 200 miles closer to Dallas than Los Angeles. The school was in the Big Eight/Big 12 for 62 years and has been a member of the Pac-12 for just 12.

Yet in vibe, culture and politics, Boulder is more California than Texas, more West Coast than Southern Plains.

Absolutely true. Anyone who has spent much time in ski country knows.

3. Colorado’s identity is at stake in realignment, but which identity?

The decision to remain in the Pac-12 or return to the Big 12 illuminates the university’s quest to define itself athletically and academically. What’s best for one might not be best for the other.

Athletically, a connection to Texas, to a greater extent than even California, is necessary for CU’s football recruiting. And there are more blue-chip prospects in the former than the latter: 63 per year in Texas compared to 33 annually in California. (Details below).

The power structure within Boulder reflects the potential for a Big 12 lean, as well.

Coach Deion Sanders, who has transformed the Buffaloes’ national profile since his appointment last winter, views the Lone Star State as imperative. Meanwhile, the chancellor, DiStefano, and athletic director, George, are nearing retirement. Their legacies are at stake.

Will they be swayed by Sanders? What are their priorities? Where are their loyalties? How deep are the scars from the Pac-12’s many missteps under former commissioner Larry Scott?

But when it comes to issues that impact the university in totality, including both the source and mouth of Colorado’s enrollment pipeline, the school seems more suited for the West Coast.

— The source: Colorado welcomed 36,000 students in the fall of 2022, according to the university’s office of data analytics, and slightly more than half (56 percent) were in-state residents.

The out-of-state student population tilts heavily to California. The Golden State is CU’s golden ticket — hello, full-cost tuition! — and accounts for 10 percent of the school’s total enrollment.

There are three times as many students from California as those from Texas.

— The mouth: Colorado has approximately 300,000 living alumni, according to the university. About 50 percent reside in Colorado, while the out-of-state alumni base tilts substantially to Northern and Southern California specifically and the West Coast generally.

There are more alumni in San Francisco than Colorado Springs, more in Seattle than Dallas.

Donations to the athletic department from California increased 903 percent during CU’s first four seasons in the Pac-12, the Boulder Daily Camera reported in 2015.

“Where we play is taking us to where our people are,” George said at the time.

(Note: The alumni data cited above is from 2016.)

— Were conference affiliation tied solely to academic prestige, the Buffaloes wouldn’t consider switching conferences.

Average U.S. News and World Report ranking of Pac-12 schools in 2022-23 (excluding Colorado): 97th

Average ranking of Big 12 schools: 148th

Number of Pac-12 schools in the Association of American Universities (excluding Colorado): seven.

Number of Big 12 schools in the Association of American Universities: one.

And yet, here we are.

A dozen years after Colorado shifted its center of gravity from Texas to California, speculation is rampant that the Buffaloes will reverse course.

In that time, they have zero Pac-12 football titles, just two bowl appearances and a winning percentage of 26.2 in conference games.

Are their struggles on the field related to conference affiliation, questionable coaching hires or resources available? Would the Buffaloes have performed any better in the Big 12 over the past decade? Their final chapter in that league, in the mid-to-late 2000s, was littered with defeat, as well.

Athletically, the school feels forever adrift … not textbook Big 12 but not classic Pac-12 … reliant upon the Southern Plains and the West Coast for roster building … tied to its athletic past in a Texas-based league and to its institutional present in a California-centric conference …

Spot on. CU is betwixt and between.

Contiguous to two Power Five leagues but ideally built, it seems, for none.

👏Amazing article.