Last year, the Pac-12 conference seemingly imploded itself, leaving only Washington State and Oregon State alone in the now two team conference after all other members of the conference joined either the ACC, Big 12 or Big 10 conferences.
Now, the Pac-12 is looking to rebuild itself back up, beginning with a move in the Mountain West conference.
Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State are all current targets of the Pac-12 to begin its rebuild. All four of those schools have already accepted an invitation to join the conference, or are likely to accept an invitation to join soon, according to Yahoo! Sports.
“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 recent press release by the Pac-12.
“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.”
Those four teams won’t be leaving the Mountain West cheaply, though, as each team will have to pay the Mountain West a $17 million dollar exit fee that they are contractually bound to pay if they are to leave the conference.
Furthermore, due to the scheduling agreement between the Pac-12 and Mountain West, which allows Oregon State and Washington State to essentially join in on Mountain West conference games in football without actually joining the conference itself, the Pac-12 may also be obligated to pay $10-12 million dollars per every school that joins from the Mountain West.
The Pac-12 still needs to add two more teams to become an eligible FBS conference, though. While two more teams joining from the Mountain West isn’t off the table, many speculations also point towards teams in Conference USA or the American Athletic Conference to be targets in the rebuild as well.
In the case of two more teams being pulled from the Mountain West conference to join the Pac-12, that would leave the Mountain West with only six schools left in the conference in football and five in basketball, which would leave them as an ineligible conference. Even in the case of only four schools leaving, the Mountain West will likely look to expand itself as a result.
For Wyoming fans, many wonder what this means for a long and storied rivalry against Colorado State in the Border War. At least for now, it seems as if Colorado State will continue to work to renew the rivalry through non conference scheduling.
“The university will work to preserve its traditional rivalries through non-conference scheduling,” Colorado State noted in a recent press release.
No other information has been released by the Mountain West since this news broke.
