I know it's water under the bridge at this point, but damn did the Pac-12 screw up.
There was absolutely a path to creating a Pac-14 through UT & OU and expanding from there in a strategic way. Bad leadership and member hubris killed what should have been a juggernaut of a conference.
I loved the dream of a Pac-16 via KU, OU, UT and UH. Pod scheduling for football (NW, Cali, Mountain & Central) with 3 games against your pod & 2 each from every other pod each year. Regional rivalries plus every team playing someone from every region each year. For CU, that would mean we always play Utah, Arizona and ASU. Then we'd have UW or WSU, UO or OSU, Cal or Furd, USC or UCLA, UT or UH, and OU or KU on 2-year cycles of Home/Away.
On par with anyone for football, basketball, Olympic sports, recruiting grounds, media markets and academic prestige. It should have happened. Furk.