The University of Texas El Paso has announced that it will be joining the Mountain West Conference in 2026. The conference now sits with seven full-time members and eight football members. The University of Wyoming is a full-time member. The move comes just days after Utah State University unexpectedly left for the PAC-12 conference.
“When Utah State bolted I was surprised,” Wyoming Athletic Director, Tom Burman said at a press conference. “In all honesty, I was a little disappointed and a little angry.”
The dismantling of the PAC-12 conference, which started last year, put the college athletics world into a conference relocation panic. What was once the Power 5 conferences, has since become the Power 4, including the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 10 Conference, and the Big 12 Conference.
Schools have been opting to join the Power 4 conferences, in favor of more profitable media deals. These media deals are based entirely on the school’s football teams since that’s what brings in the money. However, entire athletic departments will move based on these decisions.
Group-of-five conferences, like the Mountain West Conference, were put into limbo by bigger schools leaving conferences for more favorable revenue shares. Earlier this year, the PAC-12 was left with only two schools: Oregon State University and Washington State University. The PAC-12 has since built back to eight schools, with the new additions of Boise State University, Colorado State University, Fresno State University, Gonzaga University, San Diego State University, and Utah State University.
Five of the new PAC-12 members left the Mountain West. This has put the Mountain West in jeopardy of existing, as it needs eight full-time members to be recognized by the Football Bowl Subdivision. Schools like Wyoming were put into a tough situation -- join a bigger conference and pay exit fees, secede from the Football Bowl Subdivision to the Football Championship Subdivision, or rebuild the conference.
Following the move from Utah State University, seven current Mountain West Conference members signed memorandums of understanding. Those seven members are the Air Force Academy, the University of Hawaii, the University of Nevada, the University of New Mexico, San Jose State University, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and the University of Wyoming. This pledge provided stability to the Mountain West, ensuring that the remaining members would commit to growing the conference rather than leaving it. It promised a portion of the $90 million of exit fees that the conference has received. Maintaining stability in the conference was the number one priority for many of the athletic departments in the Mountain West.
“It’s binding, but in 2024 there’s always loopholes,” Burrman said, “but I feel very good that the seven members that are here together intend to stay.”
The future of the Mountain West Conference lies in finding at least one more full-time member or promoting the University of Hawaii to be a full-time member. Both FCS and group of 5 schools, who have been looking to make a move, will be candidates to join the conference. If the conference resorts to recruiting one more school, it will likely be a competition between the PAC-12 and the Mountain West to see which one can make a better deal for the prospective school.
