re: Why did Colorado leave the Big XII in the first place?

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They were also struggling and thought a tighter connection with California would help, as that was their traditional recruiting grounds.

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They were never able to re-establish strong connections to the top tier talent in California like they had in the 80’s and 90’s. The move also harmed their Texas recruiting base. So the move hurt them in Texas, and didn’t help them in California.

The recruiting game had also changed since their Big 8 glory years. Partial qualifiers were a big key to their success. Those type of recruits were no longer an option in either conference.

USC and Oregon had locked down much of the talent in California, and the other PAC schools had a more established history and connections in the state when Colorado made the move in 2011.

More schools outside of the West Coast were also recruiting nationally, and California is fertile grounds. Even old Big 12 rivals UT and OU were pulling more Blue Chip talent out of California than they were. More recently, Alabama has had great success cherry picking players.

Colorado has been continually pushed way down the pecking order since they joined the PAC-12, and that left them with no chance at the best players, and fewer and fewer scraps to to fill their roster.

The dream of once again recruiting California successfully never had much of a chance. Add in self-imposed limitations and an adversarial administration, and it became impossible.