On Thursday afternoon, the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents unanimously approved the university to leave the Pac-12 for the Big 12 next year.
The approval comes less than 24 hours after it was first reported that a move to the Big 12 for Colorado was imminent. Action Network’s Brett McMurphy was the first to report the news on Wednesday.
Colorado becomes the third university in the last 13 months to announce its departure from the conference following the 2023-2024 academic calendar. Southern California and UCLA previously announced in June 2022 that they will be joining the Big Ten.
The move to the Big 12 is also a return “home” for the university and its athletic programs. Colorado was previously a member of the Big 12 from its creation in 1996 to 2010 when it decided to join the Pac-12.
The Big 12 on Thursday afternoon released a short statement on the decision to add Colorado, simply stating;
“They’re back.”
For the Big 12, Colorado will be the fifth university to join the conference under commissioner Brett Yormark, joining BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston. All four schools joined the conference earlier this month.
The conference, of course, has been on the other side of conference realignment as well, losing Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC following the 2023-2024 academic year. After losing the anchors of their conference, Yormark and the rest of the conference’s senior officials have been very aggressive in ensuring the sustainability of the Big 12 both in the short and long term.
It is expected that they’re not done yet in expanding the conference either, with Arizona, Arizona State, Connecticut, and Utah all being schools that have been connected to the Big 12’s expansion pursuits.