Validation from California schools? No. CU is in the top half in terms of academics, only behind Cal, Stanford, and UCLA. For football, CU is 2nd all time only behind USC in every category and the Pac 10 is historically better than the Big 12 in basketball. The only thing the Big 12 has going for them is that you get to visit a bunch of nice towns....who doesn't want to visit Lubbock or College Station, or how about Manhattan? No? Yeah I'll have fun road triping to So Cal, Arizona, and Utah. The only thing KSjU can claim is that to them, football started in 1993, even though you guys still suck at football.