12 reasons CU should rejoin the Big 12

If you haven’t heard, Colorado has been rumored to want back into the Big 12 five years after leaving for the Pac-12. The Ralphie Report’s Jeff Hauser believes it makes zero sense to leave for the Big 12. I respectfully disagree, and I present 12 reasons why CU would be better off in the Big 12.

1. Money is the only thing that matters to CU. Moving back to the Big 12 would be expensive in its own right (the Pac-12 has an exit fee), but the chance to marginally improve their conference revenue is too much to pass on. That’s assuming the University of Texas drops the Longhorn Network.

2. Colorado truly misses taking a back seat to the University of Texas. The Buffs can only go so long without being publicly emasculated.

3. Colorado is the only Pac-12 school with a major recruiting foothold in Texas, so they naturally want to go back to the Big 12 to expand their already expansive foundation. That way, they can go back to competing with the Longhorns and Sooners for Texas’s top-prospects. Also, they can sell California prospects on seeing parts of the country they’ve never experienced before, like Stillwater, Oklahoma.

4. Iconic football coach Bill McCartney would use the natural beauty of the Boulder area to sell recruits on CU over Oklahoma and Nebraska. CU should now leave a conference saturated with natural beauty and go back to having a massive location advantage over their competition.

5. How could a place like Boulder possibly be a cultural fit in a conference that represents cities like Berkeley, Eugene and Seattle? CU should go back to their Great Plains roots instead of hanging with the Left Coast.

6. The University of Colorado’s alumni and donor base have shifted westward in past decades, but it makes sense for CU to leave them behind in favor of a dissipating base in the southern plains.

7. Even though Nebraska is in the Big Ten and has no reason to come back, Colorado wants to restore their age-old rivalries with old Big 12 foes Iowa State and Texas Tech.

8. Even if that success never came, at least the Buffs could beat Kansas once a year in football and basketball. The former ensures CU could never have a winless conference record, like they did in 2014. The latter ensures a signature win every year.

9. Since moving to the Pac-12, nearly every sport besides football has been notably successful. The growth and continual success of these other sports, however, come second to football, no matter what. If there’s even the slightest chance of Colorado football being better back in the Big 12, the university has to take it, even if the other sports suffer as a result.

10. Colorado State needs a travel partner.