The Pac-12 Is Back: How the Conference Emerged from the Wreckage of Realignment
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The events of the summer of 2023 rendered the Pac-12 a two-team conference. Oregon State and Washington State were left holding the bag and more than 100 years of history without a clear path forward.
After USC, UCLA, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, California and Stanford left as part of the last major round of conference realignment, the Power 5 became the Power 4. The Pac-12 was no longer on par with the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, the latter three now housing those 10 former members.
The collapse of the conference became a cautionary tale. And the results — once-regional conferences spanning both coasts and rivalries dying off in the name of more media money — were signs of the changes sweeping college athletics.
But the Pac-12 did not go gentle into that good night. It picked up the pieces and added a few along the way, surviving what easily could have been an extinction event.
Today marks the Pac-12’s return as a full-fledged conference. Utah State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Boise State, San Diego State and Texas State join Oregon State and Washington State as football-playing members in the rebooted league, along with basketball powerhouse Gonzaga. The conference positioned itself for the future, picking off institutions with a shared commitment to compete. Most of them even have proximity to the Pacific, maintaining an air of regionality. From 12 members to two, and now back up to nine, the Pac-12 is back.
“It’s a testament to a group of people and institutions that believed that we could,” Washington State athletic director Jon Haarlow told Athlon Sports. “The Pac-12 and high-level football on the West Coast — high-level college athletics in the Western part of the United States — can still exist. And there’s absolutely still an interest nationally for us to compete at a high level.”
The downstream effects of conference realignment are far-reaching. Texas and Oklahoma’s move to the SEC prompted the raid of the Pac-12. In turn, the Pac-12 addressed its membership deficit by absorbing a chunk of the Mountain West, plus a member of the Sun Belt. Those conferences had to then backfill those vacancies — and on and on the cycle goes.
Congress has designs on curtailing conference realignment in the Protect College Sports Act. The gutting of the Pac-12 is the most extreme example of the aftermath of the constant urge to climb.
The Pac-12 is still the smallest FBS conference. But it might be the best one on the football field outside the power-conference level it once occupied. It’s certainly the most resilient.
“There were a whole lot of people out there that underestimated us,” Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould said. “They underestimated how many people care about the Pac-12 brand.”
Oregon State and Washington State held a vested interest in that storied brand long before the breakup. The Beavers were a founding member in 1915 of what was then the Pacific Coast Conference. The Cougars joined a year later.
With more NCAA national titles across all sports than any other conference, the Pac-12 came to be known as the “Conference of Champions,” home to legendary athletes like Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Tiger Woods.
More than a century later, Oregon State and Washington State still carry that banner together. And they are now the elder statesmen in the rebuilt league.
“I view it as a tremendous opportunity to be leaders,” Haarlow said. “And I don’t know that we could have said that in the previous iteration of the Pac-12.”
In the fall of 2024, the first season with the Beavers and Cougars as the sole schools in the conference, expansion began in earnest.
Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Colorado State were the first to announce they would join the Pac-12. Utah State soon followed suit. And in 2025, Gonzaga and Texas State rounded out the rebuilt conference and expanded its footprint.
“We have nine universities that invest, that want to win, that want to compete at the highest level, that want to continue to have the Pac-12 be a top-five conference,” Gould said.
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Six of the eight programs played in a bowl game last season. Five of them have won 10-plus games in a season at least once this decade. Gould sees the conference’s size as an advantage to separate from the pack, valuing quality over quantity.
“Every league has a set of, what I call, bottom feeders — or programs at the bottom — that maybe aren’t investing, or that maybe aren’t at the level,” Gould said. “Sometimes, there’s a considerable gap between the top and the bottom. We don’t have that. We have programs, top to bottom, that really understand that in order for all of us to be great, everybody has to have a shared commitment around investing.”
Gould’s tenure as Pac-12 commissioner has been defined by the road back to some semblance of stability. She was appointed in 2024 with the conference embroiled in chaos. Gould said there was overwhelming outside support throughout the process for the Pac-12 brand to live on, which it did in name and with a revised logo that honors the original.
New League. Same Legacy.
The mark is bolder. The boundaries are gone. The energy is electric. ⚡️
The new Pac-12 is coming.#BackThePacpic.twitter.com/YJGKOX1eNw
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) April 27, 2026
But the rebirth of the conference with so many new members also presented an opportunity to reimagine an entity with a rich history. Necessity sparked innovation for the Pac-12, which addressed its issues with innovative solutions.
A disastrous media rights deal contributed to the conference’s collapse in the first place, which necessitated a strong setup for the comeback. The Pac-12 partnered with CBS Sports, USA Sports and CW Sports, a setup that will see all of its football games broadcast on linear television. Pac-12 Enterprises, the conference’s broadcast arm born out of the Pac-12 Network, will also play a role in the production and presentation of these games.
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Gould touted the predictability of when and where fans can watch all of their team’s games — with the notable exception of the regular-season finale. Pac-12 teams can only play seven unique conference games with just eight members, so the league introduced a first-of-its-kind flex scheduling model that allows it to adjust matchups for the final week as it sees fit.
Here’s how our 2026 football schedule works ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/LBXpqE1mQE
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) February 12, 2026
“It’s in our best interest in terms of what we are trying to create from a strength of schedule perspective in terms of compelling matchups, in terms of fan interest, in terms of CFP access,” Gould said.
Boise State, perhaps the most heralded of the conference newcomers, is one of a handful of Group of 6 teams that has broken through to the CFP. The Broncos are among the winningest programs of the last decade and projected to be among the top 25 teams in the country in 2026.
Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey said a move to the Pac-12 made sense when he arrived at the school five years ago.
“Then conference realignment hit, and everything changed,” Dickey said. “It felt over.”
That round of realignment is ultimately what brought the Broncos into the fold after 15 years as the premier program in the Mountain West.
“When you think about our competitiveness and our expectations overall, that alignment made sense to me in terms of who the Pac-12 was and who I believe it could be as we are going through changes in our industry,” Dickey said.
There is no shortage of changes in college athletics, as the NCAA recently introduced new eligibility requirements and college football mulls changes to the calendar and playoff format. But perhaps the most impactful change was the introduction of revenue sharing last summer, which allows programs to pay athletes directly in addition to NIL.
“I have to go out and create revenue opportunities because now we have this additional expense line of revenue sharing,” Dickey said. “And for most of us, we don’t have revenue to share.”
The mad dash for cash from the bottom of the Group of 6 to the wealthiest programs in the Power 4 is why there is such an impetus on media rights deals and CFP access. It’s also why the Pac-12 is touting Pac-12 Enterprises, an additional income stream for its members at a time when roster costs and head coach salaries are booming.
“It’s always been big business, but it is as big a business now as it’s ever been,” Haarlow, Washington State’s AD said. “And I think it’s gonna continue to go towards that direction.”
Fresno State athletic director Garrett Klassy said the school has been working on a Pac-12-ready model to position itself for success for the next five years in its new conference. And that starts with making up ground financially.
A renewed sense of optimism — and a willingness to invest — for stakeholders around the program can help bridge those gaps. Klassy said many of the key Bulldogs supporters he called the day the Pac-12 move became official cried on the phone.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Klassy said. “We loved our time in the Mountain West Conference, but being able to partner with some like-minded brands that all bring competitive value, academic fit… It’s an exciting time.”
Klassy said Oregon State and Washington State’s experience in the Pac-12 when it was an autonomous conference is something for Fresno State and the rest of the league to strive for. And he touted the Beavers and Cougars’ facilities as aspirational as the Bulldogs mull stadium upgrades of their own.
The excitement about the union between the Pac-12 incumbents and newcomers cuts both ways. While Utah State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Boise State, San Diego State, Texas State and Gonzaga are joining a conference that holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts, the Pac-12 could also not continue without them.
“There’s a lot of strong brands in there that have, over the last several years, continued to invest in that and build towards positioning themselves in a place like this,” Haarlow said. “I love the regionality of it. I still think that there’s absolutely this place for regionality in college athletics.”
But will that stay the case? Texas State, the most recent football-playing addition to the conference, is isolated from its new Pac-12 opponents. And some of the other programs that have been bandied about as potential additions could further nationalize the conference.
UConn, one of two FBS independents along with Notre Dame, has enjoyed a football renaissance in recent years. And the Huskies’ men’s and women’s basketball bona fides are evident. But it is also located thousands of miles from the bulk of the Pac-12.
Change feels inevitable. Whether that change occurs in 2027 or later is the question. But the conference appears content with the current membership, for now at least.
“We don’t have a sense of urgency to add members just to add members,” Gould said.
She reiterated the desire for programs that are willing to invest, compete at the highest level and already have recognizable brands that membership in the Pac-12 would only elevate.
“We will not compromise those considerations or those standards just to solve an operational problem because we’re small,” Gould said.
As of today, the Pac-12 is a little less small. And that alone is a win for the conference. There will be celebrations at campuses from Pullman, Washington, to San Marcos, Texas, as members new and old celebrate their partnership and improved position in college football’s pecking order.
“The Pac-12 is a special conference, with an extraordinarily strong legacy, and I would also say an equally strong future,” Haarlow said. “And we’re thrilled to be part of both of those.”
Fittingly, the 2026 season begins with three Pac-12 members playing against former members of the conference. Fresno State faces USC. Boise State plays at Oregon. And Washington State takes on rival Washington in the Apple Cup.
The Beavers play at the Cougars on Oct. 17. For the first time since 2023, that won’t be the only Pac-12 game on that weekend.
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This story was originally published by Athlon Sports on Jul 1, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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