Pac-12 CFB realignment: Who the conference has added, failed expansion and a Mountain West feud

For much of its 109-year existence, the Pac-12 was a model of relative stability, with few membership changes and a core group of west-coast schools sticking together for the better part of a century to form college sports’ preeminent western-based conference.

Over the past 17 months, things have been decidedly more chaotic.

During that stretch, the Pac-12 lost 10 of its 12 members, with UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington bolting for the Big Ten; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah leaving for the Big 12; and Cal and Stanford making the cross-country move to the ACC, a league with a namesake coast from which the two Bay Area schools are 3,000 miles away.

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A conference many presumed to be dormant with only Washington State and Oregon State remaining as members has been extremely active over the past several weeks. The league has expanded its ranks and been a source of perpetual speculation on who it might add next, particularly after several schools turned down its overtures.

So where do things with the Pac-12 stand right now? Here’s a look at the state of the Pac-12, including which members it has added, who has rebuffed it and what its next moves might be:

Pac 12 additions

Late on the night of Sept. 11, news leaked that the Pac-12 was extending invitations to four Mountain West schools — San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State. The accepted invitations were confirmed by each of the four new members the following day.

The moves came after a brief but ultimately tenuous alliance between the Pac-12 and Mountain West. Washington State and Oregon State are playing schedules this season in which the majority of their opponents are from the Mountain West as part of a scheduling agreement between the two conferences.

In early September, about one week before the four Mountain West schools were poached, it was announced that the conferences had not renewed that agreement for the 2025 season.

On Tuesday, more than two weeks after the four initial additions, the Pac-12 announced it had added Utah State, also from the Mountain West.

The five schools were among the best in the Mountain West and offer the Pac-12 competitive programs in the two major-revenue sports.

Boise State is the conference’s most recognizable football brand, with 13 end-of-season top-25 finishes since 2002 and three New Year’s Six (and BCS before that) bowl wins since 2006. San Diego State men’s basketball made it all the way to the championship game of the 2023 NCAA Tournament and its football program has won at least a share of three conference titles since 2012. Fresno State football has five seasons with at least 10 wins since 2013 and has won the Mountain West four times since 2012.

Utah State men’s basketball has made the NCAA tournament four of the past six seasons and went 28-7 last season, winning the Mountain West regular season title. And though its football team has struggled for much of the past decade, Colorado State men’s basketball has made the NCAA tournament two of the past three years and the university spends more on athletics than all but one Mountain West member (San Diego State), according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education data.

The Pac-12 and its new members owe exit fees of upwards of $17 million for each Mountain West school that was added.

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How many schools are in the Pac 12?

With the addition of the five Mountain West schools, the Pac 12 is now up to seven members, all of which, interestingly enough, have names that end in “State.”

To be recognized as a conference with access to NCAA championships and the College Football Playoff, the conference needs at least eight members in all sports by 2026.

It will be worth monitoring whether the Pac-12 remains the Pac-12. Unlike the Big Ten and Big 12, the conference changed its name to reflect its current membership count, becoming the Pac-10 in 1978 when it added Arizona and Arizona State and the Pac-12 when it added Colorado and Utah in 2011.

What’s next for the Pac 12?

After bringing aboard the first four Mountain West schools, the Pac-12 was initially aggressive and ambitious with its expansion targets, looking east at a group of American Athletic Schools, namely Memphis and Tulane.

Those potential new members, however, ultimately declined the advances from the Pac-12, with Memphis, Tulane, South Florida and UTSA announcing their commitment to the AAC in a joint statement on Monday. For those schools, the logistics of the conference’s geographic footprint and the financial figures that the Pac-12 offered as part of its deal simply didn’t add up — at least right now.

"Travel-wise, it would be about 20,000 miles that our teams would have to travel in order to compete with the seven schools that are in there," Memphis athletic director Ed Scott said Thursday. "And that's if everything was a direct flight. Do you know how far it is to go around the circumference of the Earth? Just under 25,000 miles. I just don't think that was the right thing to do based on the finances we had. Now, if there was more money involved . . . that's a different conversation."

From there, the Pac-12 turned its gaze back to the Mountain West, where it could have further raided the conference for schools like UNLV and Air Force. Though it ultimately lost Utah State, the Mountain West was able to secure commitments from its six remaining all-sports members and football-only member Hawaii, all of which agreed to execute a grant of media rights from 2026 to 2032. It got to that point by promising payouts to the schools from the money the league will receive from the exit fees of its five departing former members, with UNLV and Air Force, the conference’s two most valuable remaining members, getting disproportionately large shares of 24.5% apiece.

In the meantime, the Pac-12 is advancing the saga to the place where college athletics too often finds itself in 2024 – the courtroom. The league is suing the Mountain West over the “poaching penalty” that was in the conference’s scheduling agreement for this season, which would require additional payouts from the Pac-12 beyond the exit fees for each school it snatched. Those fees start at $10 million and increase by $500,000 for each additional Mountain West school it takes. For five schools, that would be $55 million.

“The provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from this exact scenario,” Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement. “It was obvious to us and everyone across the country that the remaining members of the Pac-12 were going to try to rebuild.”

As things stand, both the Pac-12 and Mountain West need additional members to get to the eight required by the NCAA.

The Mountain West is reportedly looking into Texas State, as well as Northern Illinois and Toledo from the Mid-American Conference, both of which would be football-only members. Schools like UTEP and New Mexico State remain as options for both conferences. Brett McMurphy of The Action Network had reported that the Pac-12 was adding Gonzaga, though the school’s athletic director refuted the report.

If that deal comes to fruition, the Pac-12 could continue to add non-football schools with strong basketball programs, perhaps Saint Mary’s or San Francisco. It’s also possible both the Pac-12 and Mountain West could look to bring aboard FCS football powerhouses like Montana, Montana State, North Dakota State and South Dakota State, all of which generally fit into the broader geographic identity of the two conferences.

There is, of course, another option — the two leagues could set aside any lingering acrimony and bruised egos and simply merge into a single 14-team conference.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pac-12 realignment: Who the conference has added, failed expansion candidates