What happens to Utah State, Mountain West if the Pac-12 expands by taking 4 MWC schools?

The latest round of realignment talk involves the Pac-12 Conference and raiding another Western conference.
The league, which is currently made up of two members, Oregon State and Washington State, is targeting four Mountain West schools — Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State — for expansion as the first step in helping rebuild the Pac-12 Conference, Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger first reported late Wednesday night.
Dellenger reported that Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Fresno State “are expected to soon apply or have already applied” to join the Pac-12, and that they would join the century-old conference beginning in 2026.
Both Dellenger and ESPN’s Pete Thamel, who confirmed the initial report, indicated that an expansion deal could come together by the end of the week — the Pac-12′s board would need to approve the addition of these schools.
Within a couple hours of the first report, though, multiple college football experts reported that an official announcement is expected Thursday morning.
That move comes with a cost — the four current Mountain West schools would each be required to pay an exit fee of $17 million to the MWC, as well as an additional $10-12 million penalty fee tied to a scheduling agreement between the Pac-12 and MWC, according to Dellenger.
This is the first part of a plan to expand the Pac-12 to at least eight members, per Dellenger — the league must get to eight members or more by July of 2026 to retain its status as an FBS conference.
The implosion of the Pac-12 began in earnest when USC and UCLA announced their intention to join the Big Ten back in the summer of 2022.
Last year, with ongoing discussions regarding the league’s media rights deal dragging on, Colorado became the next official team to announce it would be leaving the conference, to return to the Big 12.
Soon thereafter, Oregon and Washington were joining USC and UCLA in leaving for the Big Ten, while Utah, Arizona and Arizona State were heading to the Big 12 along with Colorado.
Stanford and California, meanwhile, later accepted invitations to join the Atlantic Coast Conference.
These moves all took effect this offseason, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the final two members of the Pac-12.
While the Pac-12 wouldn’t be at the same prestigious level it was at before, it would allow the Pac-12 to survive.
For the four schools potentially joining the Pac-12, it would also mean joining a conference that, at one point, was considered among the Power Five, or autonomous, conferences.
With the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams this season, the winner of the new Pac-12 could be considered a favorite each year to earn the fifth automatic conference champion berth in the CFP — assuming the league qualifies for the automatic spot, and depending on who the Pac-12 could add to hit eight or more members.
The loss of Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State would be a big blow to the Mountain West, which has seen its share of attrition due to realignment.
Utah left the MWC for the Pac-12 in 2011, the same year that BYU went independent in football and the West Coast Conference in other sports, while TCU joined the Big 12 the next year after seven seasons in the MWC.
If the Pac-12′s expansion plan comes together, it would leave the MWC with eight teams in football — Utah State, San Jose State, UNLV, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming and Air Force.
Hawaii is a football-only member, with its other sports in the Big West Conference.
From a competitive standpoint, this would further move the remaining MWC down a notch in the FBS hierarchy.
The four schools the Pac-12 is eyeing for expansion have won nine of the 11 MWC championship games since the title-game matchup began in 2013.
For the 2024 season, the Pac-12 and Mountain West had a scheduling agreement where Mountain West teams sacrificed one conference game, in exchange for a contest against either Oregon State or Washington State.
The deadline to extend that deal beyond this year reportedly came and went on Sept. 1 without an extension, as the Deseret News previously reported.
There would be some financial gains headed towards the remaining eight schools in the MWC: the league would receive a total of $111 million, according to Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, in exit fees from the four departing schools and the Pac-12 as part of their scheduling agreement.
This latest round of realignment — if it ultimately comes together — could prove beneficial for Utah State from a competitive standpoint.
The Aggies are one of only two schools, along with San Jose State, among the remaining eight to win a MWC football title over the past decade.
It’s plausible to think that Utah State, in a diluted MWC, could be among the contenders for a conference championship on an annual basis.
Financially, though, this round of realignment would further add stresses for schools like Utah State.
MWC schools are already falling well behind in the financial arms race compared to programs in college football’s top conferences each year, thanks to TV rights deals and CFP money. This would only exacerbate that.
Brought on by suits against the NCAA, a recent court settlement could also bring revenue sharing to college athletics, wherein schools would be allowed to share revenue with athletes beginning in the fall of 2025, with a cap somewhere between $20 million and $23 million the first year, according to NAICU.edu.
The deal to pay college athletes through this settlement is currently on hold, according to NAICU.edu.
From a competitive standpoint, revenue sharing is expected to further the talent gap between the haves and have-nots in the college football world — benefitting the schools who can afford to pay their players more.
Plus, there’s the ever-growing and complicated world of name, image and likeness, which allows athletes to make money on their own personal brand.
Trying to stay competitive in such an environment is already weighing heavily on Utah State staff members.
This summer, the school launched a fundraising campaign — the ‘Reach and Rise’ Fundraising Campaign — aimed at raising $125 million over the next five years, as the Deseret News previously reported.
“If we don’t take this moment right now, if we don’t invest in our ‘Reach and Rise’ campaign, Utah State athletics will not be able to keep up with the changing times, with where intercollegiate athletics is going,” Utah State athletic director Diana Sabau said at the time.
“We are already behind with most of our peers in the Mountain West. When you look at Utah State and the number of investors, contributors and donors to our athletic department, we are second from the bottom in the MWC with number of contributors. We must grow that base.”