When it became clear this summer that the Pac-2 and Mountain West weren’t about to merge, the decision raised a few eyebrows. Reports held that it was the Mountain West who said no: Adding two more schools around the top of the league would dilute preexisting MWC schools’ College Football Playoff chances by making it harder to win the likely necessary conference title. Financially, Oregon State and Washington State weren’t going to move the needle substantially on TV revenue. The league might have benefited in overall quality, but the reports held that this wasn’t worth it to enough individual schools.
Now, we have a better idea what the real reason was.
Late last night, reports emerged that the Pac-12 would be adding Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State beginning with the 2026 football season. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo was first with the word, and others quickly confirmed, with Brett McMurphy the first I saw to report that an announcement would come this morning. That announcement came. The Pac-12 is resurrecting itself, wholly in name and partly in spirit.
Washington State. Oregon State. Boise State. San Diego State. Fresno State. Colorado State. This isn’t a bad collection of six football teams. If this were a six-team football league, its average Movelor rating would sit roughly halfway between the ACC and the Sun Belt. It would be either the worst power conference or the best Group of Five Six league. Which would it be? That’s a very important question.
Power conference status is mostly informal now. The College Football Playoff/New Year’s Six apparatus used to formalize it, but with the expansion to twelve teams came a split from the formal Power Five/Group of Five structure. Power conference status is now mostly in the eye of the beholder. There are still some formalities, most notably the NCAA-granted “autonomy conference” status, but for the most part, power conferences only hold the power conference label through perception. This is part of why the Big 12 and ACC are skittish right now. Everyone knows they aren’t as good as the Big Ten and SEC, but for years, they’ve enjoyed equal treatment. Will they continue to reap those benefits? If not, will they be cast out all the way into status adjacent to the Group of Five?
A power conference perception remains valuable. Especially in football. In football, nonconference games between FBS teams comprise a very small portion of the schedule. Most of the playoff committee’s job is effectively to compare conferences against one another. Nonconference performance does matter, but the bulk of the committee’s task is a series of subjective decisions like the following: How does a 13–0 team from Conference USA compare to two and three-loss teams from the Big Ten?
Most of a conference’s reputation comes from their level of play. Reputational shifts lag behind changes in performance, though, and inertia is a powerful thing. The new Pac-12 could earn their way to respect under any conference name, but doing so might take a while. The committee is still catching up to how good the Sun Belt has gotten. This is part of the value of uniting under the Pac-12 brand. Not only does it likely resonate more positively with fans (and therefore broadcasters and streaming services), but it might help in a committee room that is far from an objective environment.
For Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State, this is a step forward competitively. It’s probably also a step forward financially. For Boise State and San Diego State, the move likely feels overdue. For Fresno State and Colorado State, the development could be a godsend.
Boise State has long coveted power conference membership, and certainly earned it with their performance in the 2000’s. Aside from a brief agreement with the dying Big East, though, the fit never arose. San Diego State has coveted it as well and was part of the same Big East expansion that never was. For the Aztecs, though, the idea hasn’t been that membership has been earned on the field. The idea is that San Diego is a big market. There’s basketball involved, but there’s a lot of intermittently good basketball in the Mountain West. The bulk of the argument for San Diego State’s power conference membership has always had more to do with location and resources than on-field performance. The performance has been respectable enough to make the location play.
Our assumption is that the main reason the Mountain West never merged with Oregon State and Washington State is that Boise State and San Diego State didn’t want to merge, and neither did any sound decisionmakers in Pullman and Corvallis. It wasn’t partnerships with each other that these schools rejected. It was bringing everyone else along for the ride. Going back to Movelor: This Pac-6, as it currently stands, is 4.6 points worse at football, on average, than the ACC. A full MWC/Pac-2 merger would have built a conference 9.0 points worse than the ACC, hardly better than the Sun Belt and the AAC.
For Boise State especially, the Mountain West has been a liability, a prison as much as a home. This is a chance to trim the fat.
I’m curious how Fresno State ended up in the wagon when it snuck out of MWC headquarters. Colorado State makes sense—the Rams enjoy a large cultural presence in Denver, which is almost as closer to Fort Collins as it is to Boulder. But Fresno State? There’s a decent football history there, but the football present isn’t great. The location is fine, but it isn’t ideal. The athletic department generates less revenue than UNLV’s. Why Fresno State? Why not UNLV or Air Force?
This is only a guess, but I wonder if this came about because San Diego State and Fresno State are both part of the Cal State system. There have been a lot of fights in state governments lately about schools leaving other schools in the state in the ditch. California just saw a strange, doomed fight over this exact kind of thing within the University of California system. Maybe San Diego State didn’t want to risk catching the stick for leaving Fresno State behind. But if that’s the idea, why Fresno and not San Jose? Not enough room? Spartans small enough and new enough on the MWC scene to cut out with less hassle?
Whether the Cal State system was a factor or not, this specific collection of four schools leaving the Mountain West probably came about through which schools wanted to work with one another. UNLV and Nevada are both Universities of Nevada, perhaps making it scarier to try to pull UNLV away. Air Force is a great school with some popular athletics, but as a service academy, they occupy a different world from Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, and Colorado State, all state schools which don’t enjoy a ton of prestige. If the idea was to lop off two thirds of the Mountain West, Fresno State might have survived the cutting board through something as simple as personal friendships and institutional alignments. We might never know. We also might know very soon. The Pac-6 needs to become the Pac-8 in short order.
There are two things the Pac-12 now needs to do.
One of those is to secure a TV deal. They have some time on this, not beginning competition until September 2026, but it needs to happen. Through exit fees and a poaching penalty that was attached to the MWC/Pac-2 scheduling agreement, the Pac-12 and its new member schools owe the Mountain West a whole lot of money. Many have pointed out that some Pac-12 Network infrastructure still exists. This has helped the Pac-2 align with the CW. It might also help the new league bring a partner like Amazon Prime or Apple TV into the college sports broadcasting market.
The bet this new Pac-12 seems to be making—how risky of a bet it is, we don’t know—is that they can make as much money together as the Mountain West members made in their old situation. They don’t necessarily need to make more. If the College Football Playoff keeps granting bids to five conference champions, this league is in a strong position to get playoff revenue, and NCAA Tournament shares in basketball wouldn’t be diluted across many non-performing programs. One-time donations from enthused alumni could go a long way towards financing the various Mountain West penalties, and some of those penalties will be covered from the Pac-12’s old war chest, the one Washington State and Oregon State fought in court to keep. Every dollar will go further when spread across fewer schools, and theoretically, each school should win the conference more often than they would in a ten or twelve or 32-team league. There’s security in being a big conference. There are advantages to being small as well.
Can they make as much? Most likely, yes. Part of the reason this is happening now, specifically, is that this gives the Pac-12 the opportunity to jump ahead of the Mountain West in media negotiations, much like the Big 12 once jumped ahead of them. Late-night timeslots for bad high-major or good mid-major football? Those should go to this new Pac-12, whether through Amazon, Apple, or a more conventional route. The brands aren’t much bigger than those left in the Mountain West. But they aren’t smaller, either.
The second thing the Pac-12 now needs to do is find at least two more schools. To be a recognized FBS conference, the league needs eight competing football teams. We know the six are in. We don’t know who the other two will be. If I had to guess, I don’t think anyone knows who the other two will be.
There’s a long list of schools this new Pac-12 could call. Here’s how I’d guess they approach it:
Call Number 1: Cal & Stanford
A Pac-12 with Cal and Stanford is more legitimate than a Pac-12 without Cal and Stanford. That old story about the Pac-12 being 100 years old is mostly false, but Cal and Oregon State were both members of the original Pacific Coast Conference, with Washington State and Stanford joining before the 1910’s were over. We talked above about the competitive value in being perceived as a power conference. There’s also media value to that perception. Re-adding two traditional power conference schools who are strong academically and located in the Bay Area? That would be a coup for this new Pac-12.
The question is whether Stanford and Cal would go for it. On one side, they wouldn’t have to travel so far, but on the other, their level of competition would drop, perhaps most notably across the Olympic sports Stanford holds so dear. Stanford is the best athletic department in the country when it comes to sports other than football. The ACC is the best conference in the country in that category. Stanford probably likes this arrangement. Cal probably likes being with Stanford.
There’s also the question of cultural fit. Stanford and Cal are as dissimilar from these six schools as Air Force is. Stanford is a better school than much of the Ivy League. Cal is one of the five great state schools. Would they want to leave a league with Duke, Notre Dame, UNC, and Virginia? We’ve said often that the new conference alignments are more about culture than geography, though the two are often intertwined. Stanford and Cal’s identities are less geographically defined than the Pac-6’s.
One last unknown here, at least to me, is Stanford and Cal’s buyout situation with the ACC. Given they aren’t receiving full revenue, I struggle to believe their fees would be as large as Florida State’s, but I have no idea what portions of their souls they signed over when the ACC gave them a life raft.
It wouldn’t be a giant shock if Stanford and Cal said yes. But it probably isn’t going to happen. The biggest reason? I think it’s that power conference perception piece. We don’t know if this league will be treated as a full-fledged power league. Stanford and Cal can’t risk relegation into mid-majordom.
Ultimately, if Stanford and Cal wanted this arrangement, they already had a chance to make it happen. They could have stayed behind and tried to rebuild the Pac-12. They didn’t. That doesn’t say everything. Maybe they didn’t believe in the plan, but things are different now that the plan’s in action. It does probably say something.
Call Number 2: SMU
One note here: The Pac-6 can call Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah, but I have a hard time believing they’ll pick up. Those schools would be forking over a ton of money and giving up prestige.
Who next, then? The least powerful power conference school. The new guys. SMU.
SMU is making even less money than Stanford and Cal from its ACC agreement. SMU doesn’t enjoy a ton of cultural ties to schools like Louisville and Virginia Tech. But while leaving the ACC might be easier for SMU, it makes less sense than it makes for Stanford and Cal. SMU enjoys even fewer cultural ties to the Pac-12.
Call Number 3? Memphis and One Friend
Memphis has, like Boise State, been trying to join a power conference forever. Their attempts have so consistently failed, though, and they’ve been accompanied by so many scandals, that we at The Barking Crow have grown to hold the perception that power conferences don’t want to work with them. We’ve been hearing about Memphis trying to join the Big 12 since Nebraska left it. The fact it hasn’t happened, and the fact SMU got into the ACC but Memphis didn’t? That makes us think Memphis scares power conferences away.
Still, they’d help with the level of competition. Both this year and in recent history, Memphis has played good football. They also have some great basketball history, which could be valuable in this new league.
If the Pac-6 does add Memphis, there are a number of other schools they could call: Tulane. USF. North Texas. Temple. James Madison. Texas State. UTSA. If the Pac-6 wants to grab the biggest individual brands and/or best individual football teams it can, it can go that route and try to build a national conference. But at some point, those schools become fairly indistinguishable from Mountain West schools in terms of branding and quality. We love North Texas, but I don’t think the Mean Green are driving a ton of TV revenue in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro.
Ultimately, I think the Pac-6 does call Memphis, but between its AAC buyout and uncertainty over travel costs, I think Memphis would be the one in this case saying no. That might be enough to stop the Pac-6 from venturing east of the Mississippi. Maybe they still make a play for Texas, but again, I think they might be better served with UNLV.
The best move the Pac-6 can realistically make would probably be to add Memphis and UNLV. I just don’t think Memphis would go for it.
Call Number 4? The Dakota States
The Pac-6 plus Memphis and UNLV would be 3.3 points worse at football, on average, than the ACC. That’s right now, entering Week 3 of the 2024 season, but it gives you an idea of where the conference would stack up. A slightly better combo? The Pac-6 plus South Dakota State and North Dakota State.
This is met with skepticism, but our model consistently indicates that South Dakota State and North Dakota State are better at football than most if not all of the present Mountain West. Both schools flunked their marquee Week 1 chance this year, but the track records are strong, and that’s with fewer scholarships than they’d have if they fully made the FBS leap. If the goal of the new Pac-12 is to be as good at football as possible, they should call South Dakota State and North Dakota State.
Would those schools say yes? Maybe. It’s a big leap to join the FBS, but gaining immediate admission to a near-power conference is a pretty enticing carrot. How would the timeline work with an FCS-to-FBS transition and the NCAA’s deadline for the new Pac-12 to get those eight members, in order to gain recognition as a power conference? I’m not sure about that piece.
Overall: I don’t know if this would be logistically possible for the new Pac-12. I do think North Dakota State and South Dakota State would say yes, although I’m not positive about that. I don’t think the Pac-12 will do it. I think the FCS stigma will scare them off, and I doubt they realize just how good these football programs are.
Montana, Montana State, and Idaho are better geographic fits, and they’re good teams right now as well, though not on the level of the Jackrabbits and the Bison. Montana and Idaho were early members of that Pacific Coast Conference, the league everyone’s citing when they pretend the Pac-12’s 100 years old. But this would have to really be about geography for those guys to get the call before the FCS’s kings. Idaho was recently an FBS school. The Mountain West didn’t even want them back then.
Call Number 5: UNLV and One Friend
In the end, this seems like it’s leading to the Pac-6 becoming a new Pac-8 through a fifth and sixth current Mountain West school. UNLV makes the most sense of the options, but one thing about the Mountain West right now is that few options are total non-starters. I’d think only partial member Hawaii is really off the table. You can make an argument for each of the other seven schools. The reason Boise State & Co. probably wanted to leave the Mountain West wasn’t because individual schools were too weak. It was because there were too many schools who were too weak.
I think this is why the Pac-6 is timing this the way they’re timing it. They’ve gotten the four Mountain West schools out. Now, they can take their time finding two new teams. They’ll try Stanford and Cal, and when those schools probably say no, maybe they’ll try to convince Memphis or go explore the FCS ranks. Eventually, they’ll probably come back to UNLV and one friend. Maybe that friend has to be Nevada. Maybe it’ll end up being San Jose State. Maybe New Mexico’s basketball following will prove intriguing. Maybe Air Force will make clear that they enjoy the state schools’ company and would like to remain colleagues. There are a number of ways this could go, but overall, it’s likeliest to be a lot like the merger was supposed to be, just without everyone participating. In a sense, it’ll be like a merger and then a very fast split.
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There’s one other school to discuss here. We have to discuss them when West Coast realignment rears its head.
Would Gonzaga want to join the Pac-12?
If you’re the Pac-12, I think you have to offer. But after a night and morning of reflecting on this and pulsing one WCC source, I don’t think Gonzaga’s going to leave the WCC for this. They might leave for the Big 12 if the offer materializes, but this isn’t enough for them to give up a comfortable situation. Maybe if they wanted to add football. (They could probably be pretty good at it, given the athletic department’s heft.) But we don’t have any indications they want to add football.
