The Pac-12’s slow and painful collapse continued on Wednesday evening as the University of Colorado is finalizing a move from the Pac-12 back to the Big 12. Action Network’s Brett McMurphy first reported the news. The university previously was part of the Big 12 from 1996 through 2010 before joining the Pac-12 in 2011.
The news is just the latest troubling news for the Pac-12 under Commissioner George Kliavkoff. Hired to bring stability to the conference, the Pac-12 has only continued to fall into instability.
The conference has previously seen Southern California and UCLA decide to leave the program for the Big Ten following this upcoming season but also saw a failure to add San Diego State to the conference after the conference could not complete its next media deal before the beginning of July.
As of July 27, discussions regarding the media deal continue, with Commissioner George Kliavkoff telling the media, “The longer we wait for the media deal, the better our options get.”
While that certainly could be true, the longer the Pac-12 waits, the more trouble the conference may ultimately find itself in.
The Big 12 and their commissioner, Brett Yormark, have been very transparent that they will look to continue to expand the conference, and the Pac-12 could once again be the conference that suffers. With Colorado in the mix, the Big 12 could target other programs in the Pac-12, such as Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah.
Of course, other programs within the Pac-12 could be on their way out for greener pastures, including Oregon, Washington, and Stanford. This leads to the next portion of today’s roundup.