Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Buffs Strike First, Head For The (California) Hills
June 11, 2010
BOULDER - Contrary to nearly six months of speculation, the first domino to fall was Black and Gold. It toppled simultaneously early Thursday morning in Walnut Creek, Calif., and in Colorado's Dal Ward Athletics Center, flicked over on this end by CU Athletic Director Mike Bohn in an 8:45 a.m. departmental staff meeting that quickly escalated into a Pac-10 pep rally.
With apologies to Horace Greeley, "Go West, Young Buffs" . . . and don't stop until you reach what was formerly the Pac-10.
Officially it is now, at the very least, the Pac-11. Probably not for long, though: the conference that went beyond flirtation with CU in the early 1990s (a formal invitation was extended but declined) appears to be waiting for subsequent dominoes to fall before its dance card is filled.
On Thursday morning, the tremors quickly spread from CU's Varsity Room to all points on the college landscape. The national aftershock isn't expected to subside any time soon - and know that Boulder won't be spared.
As you might have heard, CU's conference affiliation now swings to the West Coast. Some will flippantly say that's fitting; I say with some obvious product upgrades and higher ups recognizing the need for such, it can be a comfortable, cordial fit in s-o-o-o many ways. It's now officially OK to begin what could be a two-year wave goodbye to the Big 12 Conference - once a decent home now on the verge of foreclosure.
But the vital news for the Buffs and their fans is this: As college athletics veers into its most tumultuous period in half a century, CU has diligently worked itself onto very solid footing. As one athletic department official told me several months ago, "We're not going to be caught cold in this . . . when the music stops, we don't want to be the one without a chair."
Rest easy now; regardless of whatever else goes down in the Big 12, the music (and the Buffs) will play on.
Being first to enter the Pac-10 during what appears to be a looming period of turmoil was a shrewd, preemptive move by CU - President Bruce Benson, Chancellor Phil DiStefano, Bohn, and the Regents. A long-time newspaper friend in Tulsa e-mailed me Thursday afternoon with this observation: "Whizzer White would have loved that move CU put on (a certain school)."
With the Big Ten Conference apparently ready to take in Nebraska on Friday, Bohn and his B12 colleagues found themselves facing hard decisions about their schools' and the league's future. Or, as Bohn characterized it in Thursday morning's staff gathering, it had turned into "a high stakes game of chicken."
Following that theme, while some Texas politicos crowed for a package deal to keep their state's Big 12 schools together, CU quietly and diligently worked the Pac-10, reemphasizing and reinforcing the broad reasons their school initially had piqued that conference's interest in 1994. CU passed on that official invitation because it had pledged to be a formative, founding member of the Big 12.
Now, with bulldozers and backhoes poised to ravage the college landscape, the timing of Invitation No. 2 couldn't be better. CU was a good fit in the Big 12 for all the reasons it turned down Invitation No. 1 - continuation of Big Eight tradition and long-standing rivalries foremost among them.
Yet for a variety of reasons, as its structure evolved, the Big 12 proved to be a distressed family. Otherwise, Big Ten overtures to at least one Big 12 member never would have reached the tipping point and the Pac-10 might not have sensed that giving a second look to CU would be well received.
In this conference realignment, many, many, many questions still must be answered, starting with the state and fate of the Big 12: How long can it hold together? If it does have a future, are schools already lined up to replace CU, Nebraska, maybe Missouri, possibly five of the six South Division members?
Then, a question for new Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott: Will it be the "Twelve Pac" (CU and Utah, as originally speculated) or the "Packed House" (a 16-team mega-league that finds CU precariously flung into an East Division with the former Big 12 South schools . . . minus one)?
In that scenario, the Buffs reacquaint themselves with Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, and say hello to Arizona and Arizona State, current Pac-10 members who would fill out the new eight-team division.
If the Pac-10 expands by two, CU and Utah could be members of a six-team South Division that also includes USC, UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State. Staying as a Pac-11 lacks the symmetry required for divisional and championship game purposes.
Then, there's this: What will it cost the Buffs to bolt the Big 12, how will they pay for it and when the time comes, who will be left to take the check?
Buying out of the Big 12 might not be cheap; estimated costs have run upwards of $10 million. But creative, non-crippling ways to pay off an exit fee (if one ultimately is required) are being explored. Speculation is that a new Pac-12/16 television network could produce a $20 million-plus per partner payout.
And we haven't even gotten to the on-field, on-court questions . . . After Thursday's briefing by Bohn, I asked football coach Dan Hawkins about the prospect of annually lining up in a "Packed House" East Division and how that might underscore the need for facilities upgrades, etc. at CU. Would perhaps competing every year instead of every four against former Big 12 South heavyweights be a wakeup call in that regard?
"No question . . . you're taking a huge chunk of the power in the Big 12 with you (if that scenario played out)," Hawkins said. "You probably can make an argument for having the best conference in the country - certainly with that many teams and that many national champions and Heisman Trophy winners and all that behind you. That's a lot of juice.
"I don't know if it is, but it certainly can be (a wakeup call). Every time you have a new beginning, you step back . . . maybe we all need to have a big powwow and sit down and go, 'OK, who are these people and what do they do, how do they operate and what's the industry standard in that conference . . . how can we all align ourselves accordingly?' I think that can certainly be an opportunity for us.
"Maybe it's a new chance for us to just reconfigure . . . you know, step back and everybody from the top down - whether it's legislators, regents, presidents, chancellors, football coaches - let's look at this whole thing and see how we can restructure it so that we get the kind of results in the Pac-10, 12 or 16 that we want."
It's the only way for CU to justify its bold exit from the Big 12.
Reaching for a football metaphor, the Buffs engineered a nice drive at an opportune time. The fit is just fine, thank you, for CU - as well as the Pac-(number to be named later). Whatever that number turns out to be, it's mighty good to be included.
In a time of what could be unprecedented upheaval in college athletics, Ralphie has landed right side up.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
