Brett Yormark releases two-word statement on Colorado's return to Big 12
With Colorado’s move back to the Big 12 official, the conference weighed in on the reacquisition of the Buffaloes.
The Big 12 released a statement. And this wasn’t any ordinary statement, it was an epic statement to announce Colorado’s return.
Some might say, Michael Jordan could be smiling at this move by the Big 12 to officially announce Colorado back to the Big 12 in 2024.
“The following statement was released today by the big 12 Conference, through its Commissioner Brett Yormark, regarding the University of Colorado: ‘They’re back,’” the statement read.
That’s how Jordan announced his return to the Chicago Bulls after a baseball stint. In other words, it was perfection from the Big 12 to bring back Colorado in this manner.
Colorado will also receive the full amount ($31.7 million) to be paid for the Big 12’s new media rights deal with ESPN/FOX, per Action Network’s Brett McMurphy
The news becomes another note amid many seismic changes head coach Deion Sanders has been a part of since taking over the program earlier this offseason. After acquiring 50 players from the transfer portal and losing even more, the bar has been set fairly low for Colorado in 2023.
With a year’s experience under Sanders’ belt coaching at a Power Five level heading into 2024, Colorado is expected to begin hanging with the big fish from there on out. For now, however, the Buffs are set to take on their full Pac-12 slate for 2023 before heading out of the conference alongside USC and UCLA, who are heading to the Big Ten themselves.
Because of Texas and Oklahoma’s dominance since the conference’s inception — Colorado actually comes into the league as one of the more decorated teams in the conference’s history out of all its active members.
The Buffs rank No. 6 in all-time (60) in wins out of current Big 12 members (excluding Texas and OU) and have more conference wins than TCU (56), who just came off a College Football Playoff run, West Virginia (47) and Kansas (45).
Barkley Truax contributed to this report