Washington State and Oregon State are no longer the sole survivors of PAC-12 conference realignment as they continue to make moves. The college conference landscape was rocked again this week as the reconstituted PAC-12 added Utah State from the Mountain West Conference and Gonzaga from the West Coast Conference (WCC), though the university has recently refuted the latter. The Utah State addition brings a 7th football program to the conference and the potential addition of Gonzaga, a West Coast Conference basketball power, adds a non-football depth piece and would bring immediate basketball credibility to the conference.

Last week, Colorado State, Boise State, San Diego State, and Fresno State, four members of the Mountain West, announced their move to the PAC-12. The PAC-12 still must add one more member at minimum to round out conference membership football (FBS) requirements (8). These moves are effective for the 2026 season.

Oregon State and Washington State are likely to fund some of the exit penalty costs for the five Mountain West refugees as they hold a massive cash war chest with $250 million in resources available from payouts from NCAA Tournament units and existing media rights contracts.

West Coast outliers Stanford and Cal are locked into an ironclad ACC grant of rights through the 2036 season, meaning they will not be candidates to rejoin the PAC-12 this go-around.

Long-shot candidates to replace the five MWC departures could include current Summit League members North Dakota State and South Dakota State which are members of Missouri Valley for football.

The Mountain West appeared stable until the PAC-12 exodus last week.  This past Thursday, the remaining seven members of the MWC signed memorandums of understanding to keep the league together through the 2031-32 school year. The agreement re-distributes exit fees to the remaining members but still leaves the Mountain West looking for a minimum of one new conference member.

How does this affect Denver, though? This is, after all a DU blog. On the surface, it seems that this might not affect Denver in the slightest but the reality is the dominoes could continue to fall, eventually impacting the Pioneers’ home for its Olympic sports if the Summit League falls short on membership, something that has been an issue in the past. The WAC and the Missouri Valley Conference are football-focused and no longer feasible homes for DU. That would essentially leave the Pioneers reaching out to the West Coast Conference (WCC), with or without Gonzaga.

No, the latest round of realignment doesn’t directly affect DU but you can be sure that as the realignment deck chairs continue to get rearranged, the Pioneers will make sure they have a life raft off of this potential shipwreck close by.