Pac-10 Expansion: Colorado Is First Domino Falling in Conference Re-Alignment

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, Fla.) For those of you who were saying, "I'll believe it when I see it..."

You are seeing it.

Conference re-alignment just went from talk fodder to reality with Colorado announcing their intentions to move from the Big 12 to the Pac-10 in a formal announcement today.

"This is a historic moment for the conference, as the Pac-10 is poised for tremendous growth. The University of Colorado is a great fit for the Conference both academically and athletically and we are incredibly excited to welcome Colorado to the Pac-10," Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement to the press.

Colorado's president said his school was a "perfect match" for the Pac-10 conference.

"The University of Colorado is a perfect match—academically and athletically—with the Pac-10," Colorado president Bruce D. Benson said in a statement to the press.

Now the college football world waits for the next domino to fall, presumably Nebraska, to the Big Ten Conference and quickly thereafter, perhaps news from Missouri that they intend on becoming a member of the Big Ten also.

The University of Missouri board of curators began its two day meeting at 9 a.m. today by immediately going into closed session, the first of three such breakouts scheduled as the future of Missouri's  athletics essentially hangs in the balance.

That would more than likely end the Big 12 conference as it is known now.

While any other talk on re-alignment would be purely speculative at this point, look for Texas to act, or rather react, to what Nebraska will officially say within days.

People close to Tom Osborn say that the move to the Big Ten is all but a done deal, but nothing officially has been said.

Rumors have been afoot that perhaps the Big 12 could add SMU and other schools and still have their own conference instead of taking offers to be split up and sent to other conferences.

Ironically, the most quiet conference is the one who fired the first shot, at least publicly, the SEC.

Commissioner Slive said early this year that if conferences did seek to gain an upper hand in re-alignment or additions, the SEC would counter by becoming an ever bigger and badder conference to assure its rightful place as the leading conference in college football.

Needless to say the next few weeks will be filled with rampant speculation, chest beating and some sympathy to the teams facing being left out.

Hollywood would have been hard pressed to have written a more interesting screen play.