The Pac-12 is back in business, and the new look is set. On July 1, the conference officially relaunched after a turbulent four-year stretch, with Oregon State and Washington State carrying over from the old league and seven new full-time members joining the mix.
Those additions are Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State. That gives the Pac-12 a fresh full-time lineup for the 2026-2027 academic year, which will be the first season under the rebuilt structure.
The league’s full-time members in 2026-2027 will be Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State and Washington State.
Gonzaga’s place in the group comes with a notable footnote: the Bulldogs have not sponsored varsity football since 1941.
The rebuild doesn’t stop there. The Pac-12 has also brought in 12 affiliate members across five Olympic sports, along with several existing affiliate members already in the fold.
Those affiliate additions are Air Force in wrestling; Arkansas-Little Rock in wrestling; Cal Baptist in men’s soccer and women’s swimming; Cal Poly in wrestling and men’s soccer; Cal State Bakersfield in wrestling; Dallas Baptist in baseball; North Dakota State in wrestling; Northern Colorado in wrestling; Northern Illinois in wrestling; South Dakota State in wrestling; Southern Utah in women’s gymnastics; UC Riverside in men’s soccer; and UC San Diego in men’s soccer.
The conference’s collapse started in 2022, when USC and UCLA announced they would leave for the Big Ten before the 2024-2025 season. Oregon and Washington followed them to the Big Ten, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah moved to the Big 12. Cal and Stanford landed in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Since then, commissioner Teresa Gould and the league office have pushed hard to rebuild, keeping Oregon State and Washington State in place while adding enough members to remain an FBS conference and preserve automatic bids in the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournaments.
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For Cougars fans, the argument is familiar because the consequences have already shown up in Pullman. Baumgartner has pointed to the way the current model squeezes schools like WSU, and he has also been pushing for geographically sensible leagues instead of the sprawling national setups that have become common. His preferred fix would look more like the NFLs collective media rights approach, with football money helping support the rest of the athletic department, but getting there means navigating the same power dynamics that have made reform in college sports so difficult. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State May Have Quietly Found A Scorer Worth Watching
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David Riley has already pointed to Houston as a player with real upside, and the fit is easy to see on paper. The question now is how that scoring will translate once the game gets bigger and stronger around him, especially when he has to create and finish through Division I size and physicality. If Houston can carry over even part of what made him so productive before, Washington State may have found one of the more intriguing offensive pieces on its roster. [Read more 🡒]