The Pac-12 is on the cusp of poaching four Mountain West schools to join Oregon State and Washington State in preserving the league, according to Yahoo Sports. Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State are the Mountain West schools expected to apply for membership into the conference. An announcement could come as soon as Friday, according to The Athletic.
Those four schools represent arguably the top brands in the legacy Mountain West and schools that have been considered for power conference membership in the past. If the four schools move by the 2026 season, the Pac-12 will only need to add two more programs to reach the minimum eight schools to be an FBS conference.
Ten of the 12 legacy Pac-12 schools officially left the conference in 2024 as the existing grant of rights expired. Four schools went to the Big Ten, four to the Big 12 and two to the ACC, leaving Oregon State and Washington State without a long-term home. The pair will compete as de facto FBS Independents over the next two years and are ineligible for an auto-bid to the College Football Playoff.
However, the legal status means that the two Pac-12 schools still had a massive war chest of $250 million in resources available to them, primarily payouts like NCAA Tournament units and existing contracts. According to CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd, buying out four schools from the Mountain West in a one-year period would cost approximately $187 million. The Pac-12’s existing resources could be leveraged to help offset that difference.
The long-term goal of the expansion would be to rebuild the Pac-12 as a power-level conference. The league continues to legally possess “autonomy five” status and would conceivably retain it in a new form. The next step for…
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