Boise State begins its life in the PAC-12 on July 1, 2026, and the bigger question hanging over the move is whether the league itself is ready to claim the top spot among the Group of Six.
The Broncos are stepping into a conference that looks very different from the old Mountain West, even if plenty of the names feel familiar. Five of the eight football members came from the Mountain West last season, and those schools were the backbone of that league’s most successful programs.
Of the 19 conference championships those Mountain West teams had collected in their histories, 18 now belong to PAC-12 members. The only exception is San Jose State’s COVID championship in 2020.
Boise State joins Washington State, Oregon State and Texas State in the eight-team setup, with the league expected to add another football member down the road. For now, the PAC-12 is built to be lean, but it wants to carry real weight.
That matters because the Group of Six hierarchy is shifting. For much of the last decade, the old Mountain West usually sat in the conversation for second-best among those leagues, but it often trailed the American Athletic Conference. Now the two appear to be moving in different directions.
The AAC has taken a hit from realignment and turnover. Tulane, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF all left after the 2022 season, and SMU departed in 2023.
Even after a strong 2025, the conference has been rocked by coaching changes: Tulane lost Jon Sumrall to Florida, North Texas lost Eric Morris to Oklahoma State, USF lost Alex Golesh to Auburn, and Memphis lost Ryan Silverfield to Arkansas. ECU kept its head coach, but lost offensive coordinator John David Baker to Ole Miss and star quarterback Katin Houser to Illinois.
That kind of churn has left the AAC thin. It returns just 46% of its production from last season.
The PAC-12, by comparison, is in a better spot. Its teams bring back 51% of their production, a number that lands much closer to the ACC’s 55% than to the AAC’s mark. That gives the new league a real chance to establish itself as the strongest Group of Six conference.
The preseason numbers back that up, too. Bill Connelly’s SP+ projects significant regression for the American, with Tulane and USF both among the top-10 biggest fallers and North Texas ranked No.
- On the other side, Boise State, Colorado State and Oregon State are all viewed as teams likely to improve this season.
SP+ places the PAC-12 fifth among conferences, but comfortably ahead of the Mountain West and AAC, with an average rating of -3.7 compared to -8.2 for both of those leagues.
One of the league’s biggest advantages is how high the floor looks. Every other Group of Six conference has at least one team in the bottom 10 of SP+, but the lowest-ranked PAC-12 team, Colorado State, sits at No.
- That should help even the weaker teams in the league avoid damaging non-conference results.
And that may be the real test. If the PAC-12 wants to be recognized as the premier Group of Six conference and a league worthy of regular CFP consideration, it has to handle its biggest non-conference games. Those matchups will decide whether this new version of the PAC-12 merely looks good on paper or actually takes the top spot among its peers.
In Other News...
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Boise States 2024 season was shaped as much by the training room as the depth chart, with injuries hitting all over the roster and forcing the Broncos to keep adjusting on the fly. Eleven of 22 primary starters missed at least one game, and the ripple effect showed up in the way the offense and defense had to keep reshuffling pieces just to get through the year.
The biggest concern now is whether the Broncos can build enough defensive depth to avoid living that same script again. Players such as Jaden Mickey, Zion Washington, Ty Benefield and Jeremiah Earby were all part of the rotation questions that made health such a recurring issue, and Boise State knows that a more stable, deeper defense could change the ceiling of the entire season. [Read more 🡒]
Boise State Officially Enters The Pac-12 In A Program Defining Moment
Boise States long-anticipated leap into the Pac-12 became official Wednesday, a program-defining step that gives the Broncos a new stage and a different level of weekly competition. The university marked the moment with a launch party at Albertsons Stadium, where donors, alumni, former student-athletes, university leaders and fans gathered to take in a move that has been years in the making.
Athletic director Jeramiah Dickey framed the switch as a direct match with Boise States identity and long-term vision, one tied to recruiting, exposure and the kind of reach the school has been chasing. It also opens the door to new rivalries and a clearer path to Pac-12 championship races, even if the full shape of that future will take some time to unfold. [Read more 🡒]