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Pat Rooney - CU Sports / Buffzone Sports Writer
UPDATED:
The Colorado Buffaloes are headed back to the Big 12. (Cliff Grassmick/Daily Camera).
The Colorado Buffaloes are headed back to the Big 12. (Cliff Grassmick/Daily Camera).

The numbers have been crunched, the financial projections calculated, the desired stability finalized.

With the immediate shock of the news of Colorado’s departure from the Pac-12 Conference to rejoin the Big 12 dulling somewhat, it’s time to look ahead.

For football, it’s a return to tradition and an even bigger spotlight for the overwhelming attention generated by a Coach Prime era that hasn’t even yet truly begun. In basketball, men’s and women’s, the travel demands indeed may be less of a chore — Central Florida in Orlando certainly is a haul, but Morgantown, West Virginia is less than 180 miles further from Boulder than Seattle, albeit with a two-time zone jump instead of one. There will be more one-game trips within an overall geographic footprint more condensed than in the Pac-12.

Certainly many questions need to be answered in the coming weeks and months. With a 13-team league (at least, though likely more by then) on tap when the Buffs begin Big 12 play in 2024-25, what will the nine-game football conference scheduling rotation look like? The same rotation questions exist in men’s and women’s basketball, with the added question if the Big 12 will stick to an 18-game league schedule or expand to 20. (The Pac-12 moved to a 20-game men’s basketball schedule in ’20-21 but maintained an 18-game schedule for the women; currently the Big 12 plays 18 conference games in men’s and women’s hoops).

Unlike the Pac-12, the Big 12 doesn’t use travel partners in its basketball scheduling. It remains to be seen if that practice continues, but a more flexible schedule has given the Big 12 huge exposure as a regular part of ESPN’s Big Monday broadcasts. Don’t expect that to change.

“You won’t know definitely until we see schedules, but there’s no doubt the footprint of the Big 12, and you have to maybe take out West Virginia and Central Florida, but the footprint is less geography to cover,” CU men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle said. “We’re going to be at home on a Wednesday and then at home on a Saturday and then maybe on the road again on Monday. The one thing I loved about the Big 12 is you play on Saturday and maybe tip off at noon or one o’clock, and it’s great for our fans, it’s great for the kids, it’s great for everybody. Rather than the eight o’clock tip times.”

As for CU’s Olympic sports, it will depend on the sport. Even with Texas’ looming departure, the Big 12 should generally remain comparable to the Pac-12 in women’s volleyball. But right now it’s probably a step down in women’s soccer. The cross country teams will continue to dominate regardless of the league.

One hurdle CU athletic director Rick George will need to sort through is the fate of the women’s lacrosse team, as it’s a sport not sponsored by the Big 12. Cincinnati, entering the Big 12 this year, is the only projected ’24-25 Big 12 member that sponsors a women’s lacrosse team. Oddly, while USC lacrosse doesn’t face the same dilemma in its move to the Big Ten, the Pac-12 might be willing to keep USC and CU as affiliate members for women’s lacrosse, or risk losing the sport altogether (a minimum of six teams is required to sponsor a conference sport; the loss of CU and USC leaves the Pac-12 with only four). Otherwise, the lacrosse program might have to join a league like the Big East (which counts Denver among its members) or the Big Ten (the league boasts John Hopkins as an affiliate member for women’s lacrosse).

No doubt, all of these questions will be answered in time. In the short time since the news broke, a few other thoughts that have swirled:

— Boyle and USC coach Andy Enfield don’t like each other. Their teams’ battles arguably have provided the best rivalry-type showdowns, complete with controversy and genuine animosity, in any sport during CU’s time in the Pac-12. The Buffs want to retain what has been a fertile recruiting ground in southern California, particularly for recruits that might find the prospect of continued road trips to Big Ten territory with USC and UCLA not so intriguing. Home-and-home series are becoming less of a priority for Boyle’s program — outside of CSU, they haven’t inked such an agreement since a two-game deal with Kansas in 2019 that ultimately became one road game thanks to pandemic problems. But here’s hoping we see one in the near future with USC. It’s a quality opponent. CU gets that trip to SoCal. And, the altitude aside, it’s still a more manageable road trip from USC’s perspective than what it generally will see in the Big 10.

— For those who haven’t read the latest Pac-12 breakdown by Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News, the foibles of commissioner George Kliavkoff couldn’t have been stated better. Beyond the media rights breakdown, I keep thinking back to some of his other talking points early in his tenure after taking over two years ago. The promise of hoops scheduling agreements for showcases with other leagues, like the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge (CU men’s basketball will walk into a similar setup between the Big 12 and Big East), and perhaps adding some sort of midseason event. None of it has happened. I was probably nodding in agreement when Kliavkoff spoke of how absurd it is that football teams schedule games nearly a decade in advance, professing a desire to overhaul that system. That hasn’t happened either. Granted, it’s nearly impossible for those other dominoes to fall into place without a media rights deal, which certainly has dominated Kliavkoff’s attention. Yet two years into his tenure, his only tangible accomplishment so far has been to watch three schools walk out on the league.

Originally Published: