The Colorado Buffaloes have announced that they will join the Pacific 12 Conference for the 2011 football season. They will exit the Big 12 after this season and will forfeit $6,863,000 in revenue from the conference.
Utah will also join the former Pac-10 in 2011 which means the conference, to be named the Pac-12, will have 12 teams and will be eligible for a conference championship game.
The Big 12 has approved their football schedules for the 2011 season and will likely announce them next week. Teams will play a 9-game, round-robin schedule with no championship game.
Colorado’s 2011 schedule, like much of the current Pac-10, will be changing over the next few months. The Buffaloes will open the 2011 season at Hawaii (09/03) and are scheduled to host California the following week (09/10) in what could be their first Pac-12 game.
On Sept. 17, Colorado will play Colorado State in Denver, followed by a Sept. 24 trip to play Ohio State for a $1.4 million payday. The Buffaloes final non-conference game is Oct. 8 at home against Fresno State.
Under the Hawaii Exemption, Colorado is allowed to play an extra non-conference game since they are traveling to play Hawaii.