Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

What is CU's identity in the PAC-12?

Status
Not open for further replies.

NashBuff

CSU Knob-Slobberer
Just read the ESPN article on the Bilemia to Arkansas hire. It said that the Hogs have struggled with finding an identity in the SEC after leaving the SWC until Petrino rumbled into town. That's nearly 15 years for the piggies and will it take us that long to find our calling in the PAC?

My big concern is that CU's move to the PAC mirrors UNC's move to the Big Sky. It looks like the Bears are finally getting traction in a conference they joined in 2006. After expansion in the Big Sky to 13 schools this year, the Bears' scheduling is now favorable where they don't have to face the Montana schools that often which increases their chances for further success down the road. This begs the question is that will the Buffs have to wait until the PAC expands again to find success in football?

What does CU need to do from this point to five years down the road?
 
Some of it applies, I think. In general any time you switch conferences you have somewhat of an identity crisis. Players/coaches/fans aren't familiar with the other teams/towns/traditions etc. That takes time regardless of success. Second is the the level of success you have in the new conference vs the old one; for us this couldn't have come at a worse time in our history. How much of that is our own fault (coaches, admin, etc) vs how much is attributable to the conference switch is tough to tell.

Arky's identity in the SWC was tied to their strong rivalries with the Okie schools (look at a map of where the schools actually lie within the states, and you see how natural and social geography shows they are much more a natural rival with Okie State and Oklahoma than LSU and other SEC teams), and of course with the Texas schools due to their history together. I think their case is very similar to what Missouri is going to go through (natural rivals are of course the Kansas schools), Missouri has no real identity in the SEC and it will take years to develop one, especially being in the East division. For both Arky and Mizzou's sakes, the SEC should make that game the rivalry week game as it is a much more natural rivalry between Mizzou and Arky which would allow A&M-LSU to be a premier rivalry week game as well.

Anyway, there are so many variable that there isn't any other predictor of identity in a conference besides success on the field.

Arky didn't find their identity in the SEC under Petrino, IMO, they found it under Nutt; but for some reason their success under him made them think they were too good for him (very similar to Auburn and Tuberville) and he left out of frustration.

Will we truly be happy long term if we get back to winning football but not conference championship level of football? Once the bar gets raised back to Gary Barnett level of success will we demand to get back to McCartney level of ball and run that coach out of town until we get it?

Easy to say we would just like to be playing winning football but after 3 years of that we will all want more.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top