Sources - Boise State among four schools set to join Pac-12 - ESPN
Sources - Boise State among four schools set to join Pac-12 - ESPN
Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Fresno State will join the Pac-12 in the 2026-27 academic year, they announced Thursday.
The other three schools are Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State. Reports of the Pac-12's demise were greatly exaggerated.
I wonder who they will fill out the rest of the league with. I assume they're trying to leave the door open for Cal/Stanford/SMU if the ACC implodes, but that might not happen for some time. They will probably need to pick up another 2. Maybe a Texas school? If they further raid Mountain West, UNLV is surely a top choice.
As for Mountain West, I imagine they would try to backfill ASAP, but there's almost no options left. Try to convince Idaho to move back up? Get the Montana and/or Dakota schools? They're best move may be to merge with CUSA, since both leagues are a little light after being eaten up by other conferences.
I think in the immediate future, Memphis and Tulane are also on the short list.
I'm thinking that the Pac-12 may look east for some AAC schools that have been trying to join power 5 conferences. Memphis seems like a obvious choice here. USF has been wanting a power 5 invite for a while (especially after UCF got into the Big XII), but that might be too far east for them. UTSA seems like a good choice and Tulane could be a good fit as well.
As far as the Mountain West, assuming none of their other members jump ship, the most obvious replacements would be New Mexico State and UTEP, although New Mexico will probably fight to keep New Mexico State out of the conference. C-USA is getting two new members next year in Delaware and Missouri State, so losing NMST and UTEP wouldn't be the biggest loss. Otherwise, the Mountain West would probably be looking at FCS schools who want to move up, which may include the Dakotas, Montana/Montana State, and/or Idaho (which used to be an FBS school).
- Washington State
- Oregon State
- Boise State
- San Diego State
- Colorado State
- Fresno State
Sensing a trend here. San Jose State and New Mexico State, come on down! City-State and State-State divisions!
This comment is only slightly stupider than the real way things get decided now.
Florida State is looking to leave the ACC...
City-State and State-State divisions!
This would unironically go so hard
So, it's 6-Pac now?
I wonder if they'll eventually absorb all of MWC.
Reports are that they need at least 2 more members to stay as a conference. My guess is they want to find 2 more schools that can tide them over. Then, when the MWC is up for tv rights, and there isn't a huge buyout to leave, then the Pac8 can grab what they want. Which ones would they want? I have no idea, I would be guessing at random.
I think it is clear that the 4 teams that left were wanted by the Pac2, even if it took a chunk of cash to break contracts and get them there.
Who could the other 2 teams be to get the conference to 8? I have no idea. Ignoring any Mountain West schools, I don't know who you would go after. There is probably a discussion with North Dakota State and South Dakota State, but I think they would rather stay in the dominate role of FCS. Then you start looking at all the other names that get thrown around. UTEP, Memphis, Tulane, USF, Uconn. I'm sure there are others, I can't think of any as I quickly type this. Regardless, these are all huge travel distances, and I don't think any give a significant boost to the conference.
It is really a shame, because it feels like if Stanford/Cal were still in with these other 6, it would be a solid 5th place conference. A step behind the BigXII, but a step above the best G5. It probably wouldn't, but if you could get to an auto-qualifying bid into the conference, that would be worth it to everyone involved.
It is still a shame. The Pac 12 dissolving was bad for everyone. The one bright spot was that I felt the MWC and Pac 12 merging would be beneficial to everyone. It just made too much sense. The problem is, these big decisions aren't made on a conference or national level. They are made by the individual schools each trying to look out for themselves.
I don't think the MWC would take too kindly, they seemed to want to strong arm the PAC during the last round. And honestly the PAC is in no position to make demands. The real question is does the MWC have the strength and brand identity to hold it's ground, or does the gravity of the PAC pull a large swath of the MWC in?
The MWC has been proposing a reverse merger all along, but now W/OSU is paying a LOT of money to avoid taking any other MWC schools. They might hold their nose and poach 2 more to get to 8 if AAC schools push back, but IMHO they're looking east.
Pac isn’t out of the hospital yet but maybe they won’t need to be on life support either.
Mountain West bylaws require departing schools to pay an exit fee of roughly $18 million with two years' notice, which is what the four schools expect to pay, a source said. (That number would jump to $36 million with one year's notice.)
The Pac-12 is expected to be in position to help the schools with the exit fees, in part, due to withheld media-rights distribution fees to departed members and other conference assets. The conference would also be subjected to $43 million in poaching fees, as outlined in the scheduling agreement between the conferences this year that resulted in Oregon State and Washington State playing six Mountain West opponents.
Jesus, they just decided to blow ALL the money when they could have done this way cheaper a year ago. I guess this also means that reports of a "hard no" from the Big XII may have had some truth to them, more's the pity.
All good choices!