Deion Sanders and the Colorado football program are entering a buzzsaw of a conference with the new-look Big 12, and as Mike Farrell Sports’ Kyle Golik wrote, it could be a while before the Buffs are relevant again since Coach Prime tends to struggle against higher-caliber coaching.
“Sanders showed at Jackson State when the competition ramped up and the coaching opponent had greater skill, he couldn’t win,” Golik wrote. “If Colorado doesn’t figure out the new Big XII and has similar results as their brief time in the Pac-12, only going to two bowl games from 2010 to 2022, this will only make Colorado supporters wonder what it will take to be relevant again.”
As Golik notes, the Big 12 features an array of accomplished coaches at high-upside programs who could pose problems to “Prime Time” as the fourth-year college coach, and first-year Power Five coach, continues to adjust to the HC profession.
Colorado football will help build a Big 12 that lacks ‘marquee brand’
As Golik points out, Colorado football, along with other former Pac-12 “Four Corner” schools like Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State, are helping the Big 12 find its footing in a post-Texas/Oklahoma landscape, but the conference still lacks a “marquee brand” that the likes of the SEC and Big Ten have.
“The conference doesn’t have a marquee brand like the other power conferences have going into the 2024 season, but they have a lot of very good programs that are content to be united,” Golik wrote.
With the Big Ten bringing on a program with nine claimed national championships in USC, and the SEC bringing in an unfathomable 11 national championships with the UT/OU moves, the Big 12 certainly didn’t win the conference realignment wars when it comes to already-established lineage.
It didn’t need to, though. What the Big 12 needs to focus on is having at least one national champion and a slew of College Football Playoff berths by the time the next round of realignment rolls around to ensure the conference’s next top dogs don’t up and leave like the Longhorns and Sooners did.
Then, it will be the third “marquee” college football conference this country is hungry for.