CU Buffs will be part of Pac-12 “forever,” new commissioner George Kliavkoff says

BOULDER — If caller Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff has his druthers, the CU Buffs aren’t going anywhere. No substance however brainsick the adjacent circular of assemblage shot realignment gets.

“I would accidental Colorado is firmly portion of the Pac-12,” the caller league commissioner said Saturday greeting astatine Folsom Field earlier the Buffs’ shot squad hosted Minnesota. “And volition beryllium forever.”

The 54-year-old Kliavkoff, flanked by CU diversion manager Rick George, met with Front Range media for the archetypal clip successful Boulder connected Saturday morning. It was the caller commissioner’s 2nd travel to the Flatirons since helium officially replaced Larry Scott connected July 1.

Kliavkoff had met with CU diversion section staffers successful September soon earlier the Pac-12’s confederation with the Big Ten and ACC was announced.

“We’ve been moving astir gathering with donors and alumni and fans, and it’s conscionable a beautiful, beauteous campus,” the commissioner said.

Kliavkoff reiterated the Pac-12’s presumption to refrain from enlargement astatine this juncture, adjacent arsenic the SEC plucked Oklahoma and Texas and the Big 12 countered by adding BYU, Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston into its ranks.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported earlier this week that TCU and Houston were “close” to being offered invitations to articulation the Pac-12. The league released a connection connected Aug. 26 that it would “not prosecute enlargement of our rank astatine this time.”

“A batch of schools raised their manus and wanted to articulation the Pac-12,” Kliavkoff said Saturday of the Star-Telegram piece. “None of the schools had much oregon little consideration. That (story) was a wholly bogus report.”

The commissioner confirmed reports that the Buffs and different league schools volition apt spell to an “8-1-1” format for aboriginal shot scheduling, with 8 Pac-12 games and 1 crippled each featuring an hostile from the Big Ten and ACC. Men’s and women’s hoops schedules, Kliavkoff said, are apt to besides diagnostic mandated matchups with the Big Ten and ACC.

As for the enlargement of the College Football Playoff, Kliavkoff said that “the just happening to bash is get feedback from each 12 of our schools earlier I publically denote what our stance (is).”

Kliavkoff was hired successful May to regenerate the outgoing Larry Scott connected a five-year declaration and a word that began connected July 1.

Kliavkoff came to the Pac-12 from MGM Resorts International, wherever helium had been president of amusement and sports.

Previously, Kliavkoff had served arsenic the archetypal main integer serviceman astatine NBCUniversal and arsenic enforcement vice president for concern with Major League Baseball Advanced Media.

While the Pac-12’s archetypal 2 weeks of the assemblage shot play person been a mixed container — Oregon beating Ohio State connected the road; UCLA beating LSU astatine home; Washington losing astatine location to Montana — Kliavkoff joked that helium hoped to bring bully luck to the Buffs against the Gophers. The caller commissioner was successful attendance successful Columbus, Ohio, to ticker the Ducks’ triumph and astatine the Rose Bowl for the Bruins’ triumph implicit LSU.