...was some kind of self imposed time line to get it done and a weird insistence of including Colorado.

Ask any college football fan who belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of the sport and you will likely hear a combination of the following teams:

Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, Oklahoma and USC. (Older folks might be tempted to include Nebraska)

If you're Larry Scott and as forward thinking as he appeared to be in 2010 and you say, "Guys, we have a chance to own 3 of the greatest brands in college football. This is huge. We have to put everything on hold and being willing to consider what it will take to do this as it will ensure national distribution of our network, a huge pay increase, and dominance over everything west of the Mississippi."

My memory is the idea of the P16 came up quickly and disappeared just as quickly. I'm not saying it's a lock they could have gotten it done, but I am suggesting being so quick to dismiss was a mistake and the simple fact the mess of a conference that is the B12 is making more money per school that the stable P12 is a testament to that.

I know they had been working with yewtah and CU, but seriously, where was yewtah gonna go if the P10 said, "we're gonna take a little longer and explore all our options." The only risk was MAYBE losing CU to the B10 or something, but let's be honest: CU is worth losing for the prospect of killing your only other western rival and owning the western US.