The new Pac-12 officially launched on July 1, and it looks nothing like the version that existed 18 months ago. Eight teams. Two holdovers from the original conference. Six additions. And a mission statement that still feels more like a Group of Five conference than a Power Five one.
Oregon State and Washington State are the two survivors. Both were left holding the bag when the old Pac-12 collapsed after USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon left for the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado left for the Big 12. They spent 2024 and 2025 in a difficult situation, playing a patchwork schedule while trying to figure out what came next.
What came next is Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State from the Mountain West, plus Texas State from the Sun Belt. That is the new Pac-12. Eight teams. No Los Angeles market. No obvious national title contender.
The optimistic read is that this is a competitive conference. Boise State has been legitimately good for years. San Diego State can compete on the national stage in basketball. Colorado State and Utah State have shown flashes. Oregon State was ranked in the top 15 as recently as 2024. This is not a bad group.
The pessimistic read is that this is the Mountain West with a different logo. The Mountain West spent decades trying to break into the Power Five. It never worked because the media markets were not there. The new Pac-12 has the same fundamental problem.
The bigger issue is the college football media rights market. When the old Pac-12 collapsed, it was because ESPN and Fox would not pay enough to keep the conference viable. That math has not changed. The new Pac-12’s TV deal is significantly smaller than what the Power Four conferences get. That means less revenue, which means less money to spend on facilities and coaching salaries, which means it is going to be hard to compete at the top level.
The conference has been talking about eventually expanding to 10 or 12 teams. Names like Memphis, Tulane, South Florida, and even Air Force have been mentioned. Any expansion would need to add value, though, and the pool of teams that would move the needle is small.
The College Football Playoff format helps. With 12 teams, the Pac-12 champion is at least in the conversation for an at-large bid or an auto-qualifier if the format changes to include conference champions. That was not really possible in the four-team playoff era.
Boise State is the obvious flagship. They have the branding, the fanbase, and the stadium. They have been to the College Football Playoff more recently than most of their new conference mates. If the Pac-12 is going to matter nationally in year one, it is because Boise wins the league and makes noise in the postseason.
The new Pac-12 is not the old Pac-12. It is trying to be a functional version of what remained. For year one, that might be enough. For year five, it needs to be more.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
