Realignment is Heating Up Again: 37 Days Until Kansas Football
Less than a week after Pac 12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff tried to quell rumors about defections from his conference at their Media Days event, it appears that his bluff is about to be called. Reports have surfaced from multiple sources that indicate that the Colorado Buffaloes leadership has met today to discuss and approve a plan to leave the Pac 12 and join the Big 12 Conference. While no decision was announced as a result of today's meeting, another is scheduled for tomorrow.
For those that have been keeping tabs on the Pac 12 for the last few months, there have been plenty of signs that Colorado was the most likely school to jump, That has included anonymous reports, comments from football coach Deion Sanders, and general reports about how unhappy the school was with the pace of media contract discussions.
But up until now, it seemed like Colorado didn't want to make the move alone, and no other school was ready to make the jump with them. Arizona was rumored to be on the brink of leaving, either with or without the other "Four Corner" schools of Arizona State and Utah. Conventional wisdom has been that the schools were waiting to get official numbers from a media rights deal so that they could make an informed decision.
But the unveiling of that media deal has been repeatedly delayed, with the deadline being pushed back from late last year all the way to some unknown future date. Kliavkoff stated on Friday that "the longer we wait, the better our deal gets." It appears that not all of his schools agree with that assessment. But what does the addition of Colorado do for the Big 12, and especially the Kansas Jayhawks?
The main answer is stability. Brett Yormark said before Big 12 Media Days that they liked the number 14 for the conference and would take advantage if an opportunity presented itself. As I wrote earlier in the countdown, the plans that the Big 12 has prepared almost certainly put the Buffaloes at the top of the list. The addition of Colorado gives new member BYU a natural geographical partner in the conference.
It's also highly unlikely that Colorado is the only new addition. Yormark has previously been in discussions with Gonzaga and UConn, and Arizona is still considered the most likely team to jump with them. But the loss of Colorado brings additional uncertainty for the Pac 12, and it might induce multiple other schools to look at other options, including some that you may not have thought likely.
Does that mean Oregon or Washington? Those two schools are the ones that make the most sense, especially since they would need to sign the Grant of Rights to be accepted into the conference. Add those two, and the Big 12 comes as close as possible to outright replacing Texas and Oklahoma as possible. Killing the future of the Pac 12 is just an added bonus.
