Ralphie could be running right back into the arms of the Big 12.

A source confirmed to The Post reports that the CU Buffs are “in discussions” to return to the Big 12 Conference, 13 years after leaving that league to join what became the Pac-12.

CU’s board of regents has scheduled a public meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday, The Post confirmed, and the posted agenda includes an “action item” regarding athletics, raising speculation of a possible vote to explore or apply for Big 12 membership.

ESPN reported that joining the Big 12 was discussed during an executive session of the board on Wednesday afternoon. Multiple outlets reported that Big 12 presidents met Wednesday evening, with ESPN’s Pete Thamel tweeting that they voted “unanimously” via conference call to accept the Buffs.

CU left the Big 12, of which it was a founding member, in 2010 to join an expanding Pac-12, ending an association of 63 straight seasons as a member of the Big 12, Big Eight or Big Seven.

Then, as now, the primary reasons behind the university’s discussions are stability and financial security.

CU was one of four schools to leave the Big 12 from 2010-2013 — along with Nebraska (which joined the Big Ten), Missouri (SEC) and Texas A&M (SEC) — because of growing fears that the conference would collapse in the wake of realignment.

Now a potential move out of the Pac-12 is the latest signal that a league considered a rock-solid respite for CU more than a dozen years ago finds itself on shaky ground. CU would be the third school in the last 13 months to announce intentions to leave the conference. Two of the league’s bedrock brands, USC and UCLA, stunned fans and media alike in the summer of 2022 when they announced they were jumping ship for the Big Ten, a league whose boundaries had previously stretched no further west than Lincoln, Neb.

A source familiar with negotiations confirmed reports that CU had met with representatives from the Big 12 on multiple occasions, including league commissioner Brett Yormark, prior to Wednesday.

Privately and publicly, Buffs officials became increasingly concerned over the Pac-12’s repeated delays in formalizing a new broadcast rights contract. CU chancellor Phil DiStefano told The Post only July 19 that he hadn’t seen any revenue numbers from such a deal but was expecting an update before the league’s football media day last Friday in Las Vegas.

The Pac-12 held a board meeting Wednesday morning in which commissioner George Kliavkoff offered an update on such negotiations, which Yahoo Sports reported CU representatives attended without mentioning “any intention to leave or that they had a scheduled board meeting” later in the day.

Similar to 2010, CU’s move comes amid significant instability in major college athletics brought on by another wave of conference realignment. The Big 12 reached a media rights deal with ESPN and Fox last fall worth $2.3 billion, according to the Austin American-Statesman, while the Pac-12’s broadcast deals past 2024 have yet to be announced.

That said, this Big 12 isn’t the one CU left in 2011. Even if the Buffs are in the fold, membership next fall will feature only six schools that were part of the league when CU departed: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.

TCU and West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2012 following CU’s departure, while BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston were accepted in September 2021 as replacements for Texas and Oklahoma, both of which announced plans to join the SEC a few months earlier.

CU’s discussions mark the second time in eight months the Buffs have shaken up the college football world. The decision to hire NFL legend Deion Sanders as football coach last December brought national attention to Folsom Field, where the Buffs had produced just one winning season in a non-pandemic year since 2006.

The arrival of Sanders, who had never coached at the FBS level and posted a 27-6 record over three seasons at FCS Jackson State before coming to Boulder, has made an instant impact. CU sold out season tickets in record time, ESPN came to campus to broadcast the annual spring game, and some of the most celebrated recruits in the country visited the Flatirons.

Sanders, who turns 56 on Aug. 9, grew up in Florida and was largely based in Texas in the decades since his playing career ended. Coach Prime has strong pipelines in both states, which also happen to produce some of the largest pockets of high school football talent in the country — regions that will be a part of the new-look Big 12.

On paper, CU and the Pac-12 figured to be a long-term match, given the preponderance of Buffs alums who reside in Colorado, Arizona, Washington and California. Roughly 1 in 10 CU undergrads hail from California.

But Buffs fans, boosters and alums have often found themselves frustrated and disappointed as members of the Pac-12. The reasons generally circled back to the same three points: mismanagement of the conference by former league commissioner Larry Scott, who left in 2021; lack of local and national penetration for Scott’s Pac-12 Network; and continual struggles to win in football, a slump that was compounded by a series of unsuccessful coaching hires.

Under its new deal, the Big 12 is expected to dole out at least $31.7 million in broadcast revenue annually to each of its universities starting on July 1, 2025, when a six-year extension kicks in. The Pac-12 broadcasting rights elapse in the summer of 2024, which means if CU elected to leave after the 2023-24 athletic cycle, it would likely not be required to pay an exit fee to its former league.

“I think all along, we’ve talked about (and have been) looking at, what the ACC and the Big 12 (have received) and what the SEC and the Big Ten are getting,” DiStefano told The Post earlier this month when asked about a target per-school payout for the Buffs in the Pac-12, “and wanting to be kind of in the middle of the pack — probably to be third, behind the SEC. That’s been the goal for such a long time.”

According to the Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, ESPN’s portion of its new Big 12 contract reportedly includes a pro rata clause for expansion — if Yormark adds another Power 5-level program, the network has to increase its payouts accordingly. Of the $31.7 million paid out per school, ESPN is fronting $20 million of that, or $240 million total, with FOX chipping in $140 million, for $380 million altogether.

Per Steve Berkowitz of USA Today, the Pac-12 in the 2022 fiscal year paid out the lowest per-school media rights distribution of any Power 5 conference, at a reported $37 million per program. The Big Ten topped the list with $58.8 million, followed by the SEC ($49.9), Big 12 ($42 million-$44.9 million) and the ACC ($37.9 million-41.3 million).

Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Connecticut and Gonzaga have also reportedly been targets for Big 12 expansion over the last year to 18 months. The Buffs are slated to open the 2023 football slate, their first under Coach Prime, with a visit to potential Big 12 rival TCU on Sept. 2.

Denver Post reporter Elizabeth Hernandez contributed to this story.