CSU just gave some old friends the Bronze Boot.
The Rams are Pac-12 bound. Or 2-Pac bound. Or Pac-6 bound. Or Pac-8 bound.
Who cares? The Big 12 plays with 16 schools. The Big Ten plays with about 450. Whatever. Math is so 2019.
CSU jumping from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 on Thursday is reason to celebrate, no question. I’d hold off on a parade, though, until we see who else is moving into the new neighborhood.
And if I’m new Rams AD John Weber, I’m making whatever calls, pulling whatever strings and ripping up whatever contracts it takes to keep my annual grudge match with Wyoming alive.
“I actually talked to (Cowboys AD) Tom Burman (Thursday) morning,” Weber told me in a phone interview from Canvas Stadium. “He and I had a really good chat and we look forward to continuing to try … to keep those rivalries alive. They’re important to us. I know they’re important to the University of Wyoming. (If there’s) an opportunity to (continue), I think we’ll both work hard on that.”
The Pac-whatever needs two more schools to meet the eight-team minimum required for FBS conference status again. Alas, it doesn’t look as if the Cowboys will be one of them — which means a grudge match that’s been played continuously for the last 78 years could soon be consigned to the “Remember When?” folder. Right next to CU-Nebraska, Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, Kansas-Missouri, Pitt-West Virginia and Stanford-USC. Whatever. Tradition is so 2021.
Since 1968, CSU-Wyoming’s been played for the Boot, which was originally an actual combat boot worn by Capt. Dan Romero, an assistant professor of military science at CSU and a Vietnam veteran. The Rams-Pokes game ball is carried across Highway 287 before the tilt, handed off from one ROTC unit to another in one of the greatest traditions in all of college football.
CSU’s banking that its game balls will be able to afford a limo ride to Canvas Stadium from here on out. Or an Uber, at the least. Although a $17 million exit fee owed to the Mountain West, plus another reported $10 million to $12 million per new Pac-12 school, sounds like one hefty cover charge.
“There are a lot of these terms that will be negotiated, at least over the next year-and-a-half, before our formal exit,” CSU president Amy Parsons told me Thursday, noting the Rams’ membership is slated to take effect in the summer of 2026. “And then after that as well. But I will say that we are really pleased that the Pac-12 is investing in our success and investing in the four schools that are leaving the Mountain West to join (the conference) … we’ll work to be able to (set terms) in a way that doesn’t harm any of our programs and sets a good path going forward.”
If CSU can keep the Border War alive and beat CU at Canvas Stadium on Saturday, welcome to FoCo’s Best Week Ever.
Laramie, though, not so much. The Cowboys and CSU have been conference brethren since 1968. The Rams and Falcons have shared a league since 1980. CSU couldn’t lick Wyoming and Air Force on the football field, but the Rammies topped the Pokes and Zoomies where it counts — and where it hurts. In a board room. With the bean counters. With the television networks.
Let’s be clear: Traditions aside, this is a win for the Stalwarts who’ve long pined for a seat at a bigger conference table. Although the size of that table is very much TBD. But better to be asked to join a Group of 5 super-conference than not to be asked at all. Because not joining it would’ve felt like another missed opportunity, another train that passed through Fort Collins without stopping.
The Rams — along with Boise State, San Diego State and Fresno State, their fellow Mountain West expatriates — will soon be members of the best of the best of the rest. Parsons said the four soon-to-be-former Mountain West members were extended invitations by the Pac-12 earlier this week and signed contracts on Wednesday.
Weber added that overtures from the former Power 5 league “came together fairly quickly … we had some time to go through and review (things) and make sure this was the right move for us. And at the end of the day, this was a great opportunity. It’s one that we have waited for and one that we’re ready for.”
Skeptics will call this a lateral move for better television dollars. Cynics will say those dollars won’t be nearly significant enough — CSU reported roughly $3 million in broadcast revenues for the ’22-23 fiscal cycle — to justify a divorce whose price tag is already creeping into Russell Wilson territory.
If the Big 12 without Oklahoma and Texas is a more or less a power basketball league without any marquee football names, this ain’t your daddy’s Pac-12, either. When Oregon State and Washington State swing the biggest sticks in the room, you’re Mountain West Plus.
The 6-Pac — again, math — is banking on more and bigger names joining the fold in the next 18-36 months. Who are we kidding? They’re banking on the ACC going to holy heck in a handbasket soon. They’re hoping that Stanford and Cal, two other escapees from ex-Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott’s Luxury Island, will give up their storied rivalries with Wake Forest and Georgia Tech and do business again on the Pacific coast instead of the Atlantic one.
A football league with the Cardinal, Golden Bears, Beavers and Cougars at the top of the food chain has a better shot at becoming “Power 5” again than the one on paper Thursday morning. If Wazzu, the Beavs and Boise are calling the shots, the SEC and Big Ten aren’t listening.
On college football’s new map, geography is so 2022. Should the Pac-TBD get truly serious about consolidating power, it’ll snatch up Tulane and Memphis from the AAC and lasso UTSA and North Dakota State before what’s left of the Mountain West can do the same.
When chaos wipes out the landscape, grab as much as you can, as quickly as you can. Even if means leaving old friends behind.
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