The Pac-12 is back!
Well, sorta, it’s not all the way back, however, the conference looking to revamp announced Thursday morning that four Mountain West schools including Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State will be joining Oregon State and Washington State starting in 2026.
“For over a century, the Pac-12 conference has been recognized as a leading brand in intercollegiate athletics,” Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue bold cutting-edge opportunities for growth and progress, to best serve our member institutions and student-athletes. I am thankful to our board for their efforts to welcome Boise State University, Colorado State University, California State University, Fresno, and San Diego State University to the conference. An exciting new era for the Pac-12 conference begins today.”
According to Kyle Bonagura and Pete Thamel of ESPN, each of the four schools jettisoning the Mountain West is expected to pay the conference roughly $18 million in exit fees with the two-year notice — a price tag the Pac-12 is anticipated to help cover. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 is also expected to cover another $10 million to $12 million as part of a deal with the opposing conference over scheduling, sources told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.
“Our exciting trajectory matched by the prowess of our storied athletic programs makes this the moment to advance to the Pac-12 conference,” Boise State president Dr. Marlene Tromp said Thursday.
In 2022, USC and UCLA announced their intent to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten after the Conference was unable to secure an acceptable television deal. This led to a mass exodus of most remaining Pac-12 schools. Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah went to the Big 12, while California and Stanford chose the ACC.
With the mass departure, that left Oregon State and Washington State the lone members of the Conference meaning they would have to align with Mountain West for scheduling purposes since they couldn’t meet the eight-team minimum for the Pac-12 to be officially recognized as an FBS conference. And of that point, the Pac-12 will still need to add two more teams to meet that eight-team minimum if they’re looking to resume play in 2026. However, the likes of Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, and Fresno State are a good start.
So who could those other two teams be?
Could the Pac-12 continue to pick apart the Mountain West and potentially the likes of San Jose State and/or UNLV? Wyoming and Air Force are two other teams that could also make sense for them.
Of course, this could also mean the death of the Mountain West.
