Where do the Pac-12 and Mountain West go from here?

Air Force and UNLV will remain in the Mountain West, multiple outlets reported Thursday morning, opting for signing bonuses of $25-30 million rather than take the risk of larger yearly paydays in the re-formed Pac-12.

The Pac-12 is currently suing the Mountain West to get out of the contract it signed last year with "Poaching Penalties" that were aimed at preventing Oregon State and Washington State from pilfering the MW of its top brands, which now sit at a reported $55 million.

“The Poaching Penalty saddles the Pac-12 with exorbitant and punitive monetary fees for engaging in competition by accepting MWC member schools into the Pac-12,” the Pac-12's complain reads, via The Athletic. “The MWC imposed this Poaching Penalty at a time when the Pac-12 was desperate to schedule football games for its two remaining members and had little leverage to reject this naked restraint on competition. But that does not make the Poaching Penalty any less illegal, and the Pac-12 is asking the Court to declare this provision invalid and unenforceable.”

In the meantime, the two conferences' rosters as of July 1, 2026, currently consist of the following:

NCAA rules require a conference to have eight football-playing members to remain at the FBS level. As of this very moment, rather than work out an arrangement that allows for the continued survival of all 14 schools, both conferences are now outside the bounds of NCAA rules. 

A handful of American schools announced earlier this week that they will remain in their current conference, which means that the next logical step is to begin pursuing the Conference USA and Sun Belt schools that make geographic sense.

Which is exactly what's happening.

Dave Campbell's Texas Football reported that Texas State is working the phones to pitch itself to the AAC, the Mountain West and the Pac-12, rather than the other way around, but at the same time -- who else are the Pac-12 and MW going to add? Either the Pac-12 adds another MW school, which would leave the MW needing two more schools, or both conferences add one more member. 

Cooler heads -- i.e., a full-on merger between the Pac-12 and MW -- seems completely off the table, as the two entities could not so much as agree on extending their scheduling agreement from 2024 to '25. In typical college sports fashion, rather than finding compromise among their mutual need, they are now out to destroy each other.

So, both conferences now need at least one more member apiece, and logic tells us it will either come from the Sun Belt, Conference USA, or the Big Sky, and it needs to happen fast. 

No one is in charge of college sports. Nothing explains that better than what's happening out West.