The bold is 100% not true, and you can ask fans of any of the lower-profile schools (Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana) about that. The Big Ten's heavy hitters like Michigan & Ohio State do not use their power to gain undue influence like Texas did/does. The Big Ten has always been MUCH more democratic, a "rising tide floats all ships" mentality.
You may be right that Colorado was initially a target, but I'm not sure I remember that. What I remember is that four Big XII schools were going to the Pac-10, while Missouri's governor was basically on his knees begging to get into the Big Ten.
The package of Big XII schools rumored to be headed to the Pac-10 included Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado & Texas A&M, but exactly which schools and how many were under negotiation. The one key in all of this was that Baylor was never considered part of the move, and that rankled the Baylor Admin, who had (have?) powerful friends in the Texas legislature. Baylor did all the backroom wheeling & dealing they could, and had it rigged so that they went along with the Big Boys to the Pac-10 and Colorado was left out in the cold.
The Buffs, for all our history with them, are to be commended for taking decisive action. Once they discovered they were being ousted for, of all schools, Baylor(!), they immediately began separate negotiations with the Pac-10 to join by themselves.
This likely saved Colorado from being a MWC or CUSA school, and all but confirmed that Nebraska would bolt the Big XII. The deal between the Big XII group and the Pac-10 was held up by the liberal Left Coast schools not wanting religiously conservative Baylor, and Texas was holding firm to their desire to have their own Longhorn Network, which was already in the works as of 2010. Negotiations were ongoing but not productive.
Colorado changed all that with their preemptive move. Suddenly Baylor was completely out of the picture. The other Texas schools, who had been browbeaten into solidarity by the Texas legislature, were left without negotiating power. Oklahoma had tied fate to Texas' stern and would go wherever they led. Missouri was already half out the door to whomever would take them, and the Big Fish in the North - Nebraska - was suddenly on extremely tenuous ground, faced with trying to cobble together a conference out of regional schools that would have resembled something like
THIS MESS, and that's when Perlman & Osborne did the best thing that's happened to Nebraska, both athletically and for the University as a whole, in the past 20 years - they said Yes to the offer floated by the Big Ten for immediate membership.
Fifty years from now the University of Nebraska will be on solid footing, in a prestigious conference, with respectful peers and a respectable academic reputation. This move was brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, and keeps us in company with schools with which we have far more in common than our former Texas brethren.
