I'm speaking to ADs and journalists of Big12 and that is what they are saying. BYU is in the strongest position and CSU is in strong consideration for the factors I have laid out.

BYU fans aren't well educated about CSU, but in every category they are strong in athletics with football starting to catch up to the other programs. Both current football and basketball coaches come from P5 programs (Eustachy (Prior AP Coach of the Year and former Iowa St. Head Coach; Elite Eight) and Bobo (Georgia Off Coordinator)). Remember Florida's football coach just left CSU and hasn't done half bad at Florida and CSU's last basketball coach went to Nebraska. CSU is knocking on the P5 door and isn't far off.

In football, I could tell this year that Bobo thought he had better talent at skill positions than he really had. He would call plays and you could see the lessor talent screw up. Just before he arrived, CSU lost Grayson (QB/NO Saints); Sambrailo (OT/Broncos); Gilmore (TE/Ravens); and Richburg (C/Giants), so Bobo is having to do some rebuilding talent-wise, but he will soon deliver that with his pedigree.

Eustachy told me a few weeks ago that this year will be a "getting to know you year," but that this team will develop into a top 20 team by the addition of two players who are currently redshirting. It looks like this "building" team was good enough to play and beat Northern Iowa @ Northern Iowa, who the following week embarrassed North Carolina. So far they are undefeated against other mediocre pre-season teams, but beating Portland soundly away was a good warm up. They play Kansas St. mid-December which will be their first real test. But Eustachy is building the program to the P5 level -- which is something he has proven he can do (Iowa St. is hardly a destination basketball school and he did it there). Eustachy has told me that he is at CSU for good and plans to have one or more top ten finishes before he is done with his career.

CSU's basketball and volleyball (Currently #12 nationally ranked) women's teams have played well against BYU's teams and CSU just added women's soccer. Last year CSU sent 28 athletes to NCAA's in track and field; They are #25 nationally ranked in Cross Country.

You can't ignore stats and facts -- as they say. These facts show that CSU is very close to being where it needs to be to compete in a P5 conference. BYU has similar growth, but BYU is ahead of CSU in terms of where it wants to be.

Academically, CSU is #61 top public school nationally (US News World Report UofU #55); #127 of all National Universities (BYU #67; UofU #115) and has the #3 Veterinarian school in the nation (with the multi-billion dollar horse racing industry this is a big deal); and CSU is #231 global institutions of higher learning (BYU #626).