Utah-Colorado football 'Rumble in the Rockies' rivalry never materialized: Analyst
The Utah-Colorado football "Rumble in the Rockies" rivalry never materialized in a meaningful way in the Pac-12 according to Ralphie Report's Ryand Scholes; with both programs' trajectories diverging too dramatically.
"During the Buffs’ 12 years in the Pac-12, the team never really built any substantial rivalries on the gridiron," Scholes prefaced before saying, "The conference tried pretty hard to push a Colorado vs. Utah 'Rumble in the Rockies' rivalry game, as both schools were admitted into the Pac at the same time and are very close geographically. However, Utah’s success and Colorado’s sustained failure in football led to no such rivalry materializing."
Scholes would go on to facetiously point out that the only rivalry that did sprout from the Buffs' time in the Pac-12 conference was Coach Prime vs the anonymous Pac-12 coach -- a play on all of the anti-Deion Sanders quotes published that often have no name attached to them.
" It looked as though the Buffs would leave the Pac-12 without ruffling the feathers of any of their conference mates, but Deion Sanders proved to be some sort of catalyst," Scholes wrote.
"When Coach Prime came to Boulder to coach the Buffaloes, something changed. A coach in the Pac-12 REALLY didn't like Deion and just couldn’t help running their mouth all season long, but refused to put their name behind their shit-talk. This led to what would be come Colorado’s biggest conference rivalry during the Pac-12 era: Coach Prime versus the anonymous Pac-12 coach."
Utah-Colorado football rivalry moves back to Big 12, but likely lacks fanfare to produce bad blood
Colorado will maintain the low-octane rivalries with Utah, Arizona, and ASU when the quartet moves to the Big 12, meaning the chance for a renewed rivalry exists between the Pac-12 defectors moving to the closest geographic conference of any non-Oregon State/Wazzu pre-2024 Pac-12 team.
Those rivalries won't be though. It's the reason why the west coast no longer has an athletic conference to represent it in the Power Five.
Right now, CU's rivals will be tied to the personal conflicts Coach Prime has, meaning non-conference Group of Five Colorado State is up there given the Deion Sanders/Jay Norvell beef. Whoever in the Big 12 disrespects Sanders should expect their matchup with Colorado to feel like a rivalry game.