The Pac-12 has laid out its bowl picture for the 2026 football season, and the setup is anything but simple.
On Wednesday, the conference announced official tie-ins that split the league’s teams into different lanes: former Pac-12 members, new Pac-12 members, and Oregon State and Washington State, who live in both worlds. That leaves the postseason path for the schools once known as the “Pac-2” murky for now, especially when it comes to non-playoff bowls.
For the conference’s “legacy members,” the bowl order starts with the Valero Alamo Bowl, then moves to the Las Vegas Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl and SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl. That means the top non-College Football Playoff legacy team would be expected to land in the Alamo Bowl, with the next choice going to Las Vegas, and so on down the line.
Oregon State and Washington State are part of that legacy group, but there’s one wrinkle: the SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl is set to match a former Pac-12 school against a new one. Because of that, the Beavers and Cougars will be counted with the new members for that game only. Everywhere else, they’re grouped with the former Pac-12 schools.
The tie-ins for the new members work differently. In that pool, the SDCCU Poinsettia Bowl gets the first pick, followed by the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl and the ESPN-owned bowls.
The Pac-12 also said bowl selections will not happen until after the College Football Playoff field is finalized.
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