So CSU Is Heading to the Pac-12—Er, Pac-6. What Now?

For years, #Pac12AfterDark was shorthand on social media for the outrageous and unpredictable moments that would unfold in college sports’ westernmost major conference while most of the country was asleep. Come Sunday morning, football fans would awake to news of Hail Marys, onside kicks, improbable comebacks, pick sixes, and on-field brawls in the Pac-12’s evening slate.

So it was fitting, in a way, when the league many presumed to be dead unleashed a little more chaos in the final hours of September 11. Two weeks ago, news leaked that the Pac-12—now just a paltry two-team athletic conference comprising Oregon State and Washington State—was adding to its ranks. Mountain West Conference members Colorado State, Boise State, San Diego State, and Fresno State announced their intentions to join the beleaguered Pac-12, beginning in 2026.

It had been a rough go for the Pac-12 over the previous two years. In 2022, USC and UCLA stunned much of the country when the two Los Angeles schools announced they were joining the Big Ten, which previously didn’t have a member west of Lincoln, Nebraska. A year later, the University of Oregon and the University of Washington followed. In July 2023, the University of Colorado Boulder bolted for its old home in the Big 12 and was soon joined by the University of Arizona, Arizona State, and the University of Utah.

The departures virtually destroyed the Pac-12—so much so that, beginning this year, it was no longer considered part of the Power Five, aka college football’s most elite athletic conferences. In fact, the whole nomenclature was changed to “Power Four” to reflect the Pac-12’s implosion.

Last week, though, the Pac-12 showed life, plucking four programs from the Mountain West Conference, including one familiar face: Fort Collins’ Colorado State University.

Getting the call from the Pac-12, even in its weakened state, was a moment of validation for the program, which has never been a part of a Power-anything. In 1999, CSU was one of eight schools to break away from the Western Athletic Conference and form the Mountain West. Last year, it spent the second most on sports—a whopping $61.54 million, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education—in the conference. Its football team plays in an eight-year-old, $220 million football stadium that’s nicer than a number of venues belonging to teams in the Power Four conferences. Football coach Jay Norvell, who was lured over to Fort Collins from fellow Mountain West member Nevada, made $1.7 million last year. Niko Medved, the men’s basketball coach just inked a new deal that will pay him nearly $13 million over seven years. Now, it seems, that athletic ambition has been rewarded.

What comes of this step, however, remains to be seen. While the Pac-12 name still carries some prestige, the schools that built the conference’s reputation over generations are gone. The perks of a Power-conference designation have largely vanished, too. The league’s champion won’t receive an automatic berth into the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff, at least the way it’s structured now. Its men’s and women’s basketball teams likely won’t receive the same benefit of the doubt as those from more established conferences when the NCAA Tournament rolls around in March.

The Pac-12 (or Pac-6, for now) doesn’t have a media rights contract and likely won’t until its membership is finalized. The importance of those deals, which account for an overwhelming percentage of the revenue an athletic department brings in annually, can’t be overlooked. The Rams received a payout of $5.19 million from the Mountain West, according to the conference’s most recent IRS tax filing. The reconfigured Pac-12 should be able to provide them with more, but how much?

Those aren’t the only financial concerns, either. Each of the four schools departing the Mountain West owes its soon-to-be-former league a $17 million exit fee, as well as between $10 million and $12 million for violating the terms of a football scheduling agreement struck between the Pac-12 and Mountain West. Much of that is expected to be covered by the Pac-12, which is flush with cash after collecting its own exit fees from the 10 departing schools (including CU), but it’s unclear how much the Rams might be on the hook for.

This isn’t exactly comparable to the move made by CU last year, which was joining a league with 12 members and a newly configured media rights deal. For CSU, it’s much more of an unknown. “This is a move where we are betting on ourselves,” CSU president Amy Parsons said to the Coloradoan last week. “We are betting on Colorado State University and what we have now and where we’re going and really taking control of our own destiny here as the landscape around collegiate athletics continues to shift—and it will continue going forward. Taking advantage of this opportunity really means being in the driver seat for CSU and being in the driver seat of the Pac-12 and the new league and where it’s going.”

As for where the conference is headed, the Pac-12 will need at least eight teams to meet the NCAA minimum to qualify as a Football Bowl Subdivision conference. (Right now, it has six: Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and CSU.) It has no shortage of paths it can take to reach that mark, though. The conference could try to maintain some sense of regionality and continue to pick away at the Mountain West by expanding with schools like UNLV, New Mexico, or Air Force. Or it could look farther east to universities like Memphis, Tulane, or even South Florida from the American Athletic Conference. And though football is the primary driving force behind the conference realignments, the Pac-12 could prioritize men’s basketball by bringing on Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, two West Coast schools that don’t have football but are powerhouses on the hardwood.

In that respect, it’s hard to fully evaluate the place in which CSU now finds itself. Will it be making familiar trips to Laramie, Wyoming, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of a reimagined conference? Or will it be jetsetting to New Orleans and Tampa, Florida, as part of a more geographically amorphous and enterprising league? Time will tell, but in the cutthroat game of conference realignment, CSU is in a more enviable position away from the Mountain West than it would be left behind in it. The Pac-12 almost certainly won’t be what it was with USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, and, yes, even those hated Buffs, but what could emerge from its ashes may be a fun and lucrative conference that puts CSU much closer to its wildest athletic dreams.