Why Colorado State had to make the jump to the Pac-12 and who the other top expansion candidates should be

After more than a quarter of a century in the Mountain West, a conference that Colorado State helped form, the Rams are moving on to the Pac-12 in 2026. 

Alongside Boise State, Fresno State and San Diego State, the four current MW members will be on the ground floor of rebuilding the historic West Coast-based league with Oregon State and Washington State aka the forgotten two. 

A move rooted in athletics, the hope is that jumping to the Pac-12 will elevate the national profile of all sports programs at CSU. According to university administrators though, joining the Pac-12 is about more than what happens on the gridiron, basketball court, etc. It’s about elevating CSU’s brand in every way possible. From academics to joint research opportunities, the vision is to align with like-minded institutions and take control of their own destinies during an extremely turbulent time. 

“It’s betting on ourselves, and we love betting on ourselves,” Amy Parsons recently told DNVR.

“At CSU, we’re confident in who we are and where we’re going, and this gives us a chance to kind of take control of our destiny in an unpredictable landscape of collegiate athletics. It’s really important to us, and it’s really important to be hitching our brand together with other great institutions and with a storied brand like the Pac-12.” 

Though the move is a gamble — the conference still needs to add two members by 2026 to retain FBS status, and they will have to secure a media rights deal as well — what’s exciting for CSU is that by going in as full members with equal voting rights on both of those issues, the future of the Pac-12 will be at least partially shaped in Fort Collins. 

“It’s really an honor to be in this spot,” Parsons said. “You know, we’ve been working hard at CSU for so long to be in a position to take advantage of an opportunity like this.”

With that in mind, here are some of the potential targets for the Pac-12 to add by 2026. 

The AAC schools 

Based on national reports, the top targets for the Pac-12 right now are currently the best remaining schools from the American Athletic Conference. 

The AAC already got raided by the Big-12 a few years ago but did a nice job of backfilling to remain relevant during a challenging time. Now that there is a new league on the table though, with an opportunity to seemingly cement their status as the “best of the rest”, it’s going to be really interesting to see what schools like Memphis, South Florida and Tulane end up doing. UTSA, North Texas and Rice could be wildcards as well.

Expanding East does have some drawbacks from a travel standpoint. It’s roughly 3,000 miles from Pullman, Washington to Tampa Bay, Florida. And frankly the notion of a school near the Atlantic Ocean being in a conference rooted in the West seems just as silly as Stanford and Cal being in the ACC. This is where we’re at with college sports though. And I do understand the logic of trying to kneecap both the MW and the AAC with one big move. 

From a basketball perspective, adding Memphis is highly intriguing, especially if it could open up the possibility of adding a program like Gonzaga. Memphis is a great football market as well. Not to mention that they have NIL backing through FedEx. 

Tulane is probably the second-best choice out of this group, though I have some skepticism about whether anybody in New Orleans truly cares about a program in a region that seemingly exclusively roots for LSU and the Saints. Being fair to the Green Wave, they have been to a bowl game in five of the last six years. They’re also the only school out of this group that has a New Year’s Six win in the last decade. 

Personally, I would stop with those two additions out of the AAC and keep the conference lean. Realignment is just one big game of musical chairs and there will all but certainly be more movement down the line. 

If I had to pick between USF and the Texas schools, UTSA would be my choice. That’s a football program on the rise under Jeff Traylor. And there is definitely a lot of appeal to having a presence in such a talent-rich region. There would also be less travel across the country for the student-athletes. Unfortunately, I don’t make the call here, so if I had to bet on how the Pac-12 would rank these targets, it would be something like this: 

1. Memphis 
2. Tulane
3. South Florida
4. UTSA
5. North Texas
6. Rice 

The rest of the Mountain West

While it does not appear like a reverse merger will come to fruition — the Pac-12 already could have taken all 12 MW schools and chose not to — there is definitely a world in which more programs come along for the ride.

UNLV was the most surprising omission in this first round of expansion, particularly if they are not tied to the University of Nevada like what was originally rumored. Out of the remaining eight schools, UNLV would seemingly be the best choice. 

Outside of the Rebels and investing in a growing Las Vegas sports market, Air Force could be an option. Utah State or New Mexico could also be in play, particularly if AF ends up joining Navy and Army in the AAC. UNLV reportedly has interest from the AAC, too. So we’ll have to keep a close eye on both the Falcons and the Rebels in the coming months. 

Anybody else would feel like a pretty big long-shot. Hawaii football gets some love nationally but having them in your league can be a bit of a logistical nightmare. San Jose State is in the heart of Silicon Valley but they’re irrelevant locally, let alone nationally, and their facilities are a joke. Wyoming is unfortunately just not a big enough market draw. 

As someone that grew up supporting the MW, admittedly it bums me out to see the conference seemingly teetering on the edge of collapse. If the AAC and Pac-12 combine to take enough members though, it could allow the league to dissolve without buyout fees if they can get eight schools to vote to do so before 2026. 

Assuming of course that the MW keeps enough schools to stay afloat, it will be interesting to see who the league targets for their own expansion. They would have a nice chunk of change coming in from the buyout fees in that scenario, and could potentially bring in someone like New Mexico State out of Conference USA or maybe an FCS powerhouse like North Dakota State. 

Whatever the MW elects to do, they’re going to need to move quickly. The longer things linger in limbo, the more likely it is for the league to fall apart. 

Everyone else

Finally, while my top choices for expansion are Memphis, Tulane and UNLV, taking a growing football program like Texas State could be the move if the Pac-12 happens to strike out on those schools. 

I suppose you could look at Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina as well. None of the Sun Belt schools jump off the page though.

Technically you could look at Sacramento State if they had the money to make the jump to the FBS. The same goes for Montana and Montana State. But my gut says those schools make much more sense backfilling the MW than joining the Pac-12. 

The only other realistic league to look at poaching would be the WCC on the hoops side. Obviously they’d still need eight football programs to retain FBS status, so you’d have to include other moves, but a basketball conference with the likes of SDSU, Memphis, Gonzaga, Boise State and CSU would be pretty dang fun. I know that football drives the bus with these moves but I hope the Pac-12 does not ignore the possibility of being one of the premiere basketball conferences as well.

Final thoughts

There has never been a weirder time for college athletics. Texas is in the SEC, Oregon is in the Big Ten, just about everything feels upside down these days. 

While it’s fair to say that joining a Pac-12 without USC and Washington is not the massive upgrade that it once would have been, it’s also important to point out that this is not the lateral move that cynics have tried to frame it as. Anybody arguing should ask UNLV or Utah State fans if they would trade positions right now. 

The MW has been on shaky ground for about a decade. Even after Boise State and SDSU’s move to the Big East ended up falling through, the top schools in the MW have pitched themselves to bigger leagues multiple times since 2014. SDSU obviously was the closest to actually getting out, but the point is that this type of situation has been inevitable for quite some time. 

I don’t know what the future holds for college athletics but I do know that you either evolve or get left behind. The Pac-12 maybe isn’t the most luxurious boat in the sea these days, but it might be the life raft needed to keep the hope alive as CSU navigates through tricky waters.

They say that fortune favors the bold. Well, this move was definitely bold.