By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
Earlier this month, four new schools – Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah – officially joined the Big 12, bringing the conference’s total membership to 16.
“I’m incredibly excited about what each school brings to our league both on and off the field – great markets, great fan bases and great brands, in addition to athletic and academic excellence,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said in a press release. “With this move, we become a national Conference, and there’s no better time than right now to be a part of the Big 12.”
These days, seemingly every major conference is becoming a “national conference.” The Big 10 now stretches from New Jersey to southern California; the Atlantic Coast Conference picked up a pair of Pacific coast schools in Cal and Stanford. A year ago, the Big 12 expanded its footprint southeast to Orlando, Florida and northwest to Provo, Utah.
So it comes as no shock that the Big 12 – fighting tooth and nail to keep up with the lofty television deals of the SEC and Big 10 – would be interested in raiding the Pac-12, particularly after the departures of its four largest ratings draws (Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA) left the conference floundering and without a television deal. A year after losing flagship programs Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC, the Big 12 had managed to right the ship and sink its western neighbors.
Perhaps most notable is the return of Colorado, who played in the Big 12 from 1996-2011 before its ill-fated departure for the Pac-12. The Buffaloes have a storied football program, winning an AP national championship in 1990, but only have one season with more than five wins since leaving the Big 12. Second year head coach Deion Sanders took over a 1-11 roster last season and improved it by three games, including a ranked win over TCU – though Sanders’ method of roster turnover was widely seen as controversial.
The Buffaloes have been wildly successful in other sports though, including its 20-time national champion skiing program and eight-time national champion cross-country team. The men’s basketball program has made six NCAA tournaments since head coach Tad Boyle took over in 2010. Boyle has proven adept at developing NBA talent in his time in Boulder, with 10 players drafted (including three this year). The women’s team has made back-to-back Sweet 16s and should continue to impress under head coach JR Payne.
The Arizona Wildcats boast one of the most dominant softball programs in the history of the sport, winning eight national championships and winning over 75 percent of its games since its inception in 1974. The baseball team has won four national titles of its own. Not to be outshined, the men’s basketball team won the 1997 national championship with a historically difficult schedule: three victories over No. 1 seeds in the same tournament, the first to ever achieve that feat.
Funding for many of Arizona’s smaller sports, though, may hang in the balance of the university’s recently-discovered $177 million budget shortfall. New athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois told 91.5 KJZZ in Phoenix that “cutting sports is not part of our plan,” although plans can certainly change. Just five months earlier, university president Robert Robbins reportedly warned faculty of “draconian cuts” incoming, and admitted that he’d considered selling the athletics department to an outside vendor.
“Everything is on the table in terms of dealing with athletics,” Robbins said, after noting that Arizona’s 23 sports teams are above the Big 12 average of 17. “This is an issue that is going to require a lot of tough decisions.”
Arizona State, meanwhile, is dealing with on-field issues after former football coach Herm Edwards’ NCAA recruiting violations left the program strapped with four years of probation and scholarship reductions, among other penalties. The Sun Devils are 6-18 in the past two seasons and were picked to finish last in the Big 12 in the conference’s preseason media poll.
Off the gridiron, though, the Sun Devils have some historic programs. Their baseball program boasts five national championships and star alumni Barry Bonds and Reggie Jackson. Women’s golf has eight national titles and Grace Park; men’s golf has two national titles, Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm. The softball team has earned four national championships, most recently in 2011. The wrestling team has one team national championship and 13 individual championships.
Utah is a relatively recent addition to the power-conference echelon of college sports, but has made its mark in short order. The Utes moved up from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 alongside Colorado in 2012 after significant football success, including undefeated seasons in 2004 and 2008. Since joining, the program has built substantial momentum both in infrastructure (including opening a new football facility and expanding Rice-Eccles Stadium to over 51,000 seats) and on the field, winning the Pac-12 in 2021 and 2022 before being devastated by injuries in 2023.
But it isn’t just on the football field. Utah’s gymnastics team, also known as the Red Rocks, have won 10 national championships. Skiing has won five of the past seven national titles. And after winning it all in 1944, the men’s basketball made it back to the national championship game in 1998, where they led by 10 at halftime before ultimately losing to Kentucky, 78-69.
