Pac-12 may not be done adding after reaching FBS minimum for 2026

After the dissolution of the old Pac-12, the Pac-2, as it became known colloquially, with Oregon State and Washington State left behind as the conference’s only two members, was afforded two years to reach the NCAA-required minimum of eight member schools for an FBS conference. After pillaging half of the Mountain West, the Pac-12 went into the heart of Texas to pluck its eighth member from the Sun Belt Conference. 

Texas State was officially welcomed as the newest member of the conference on June 30, with the school’s board of regents voting to authorize a $5 million buyout to the Sun Belt. The school from San Marcos, Texas, will remain in the Sun Belt for the upcoming 2025-26 season, but will make the jump out West for 2026-27, ensuring that the conference meets the NCAA’s minimum requirements. 

The Bobcats of Texas State will join Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State in the new-look Pac-12. Those schools fled the Mountain West, but are still waiting to agree on a buyout figure with their soon-to-be-former conference. They will also join the Pac-12 for the 2026 relaunch of the conference that was stripped for parts by the Big 12, Big Ten, and ACC. Those moves have set off domino effects, including Grand Canyon University joining the Mountain West.

Gonzaga will also join the Pac-12 in 2026, leaving the West Coast Conference. However, the Bulldogs arrive as a non-football member, which forced the league to pursue Texas State, an up-and-coming force in the Sun Belt. The Bobcats made the jump to the FBS level with the Western Athletic Conference in 2012, before joining the Sun Belt in 2013. The program made its first bowl game in 2023, the first season under current head coach G.J. Kinne, and he followed up that 8-5 campaign with another in 2024 and a second-straight First Responders Bowl victory. 

Pac-12 could be looking even further east for football-only members

Memphis was long viewed as the top target for the Pac-12, but with its backing by FedEx, it has become an American Athletic Conference powerhouse. However, the athletic department may be eying a bigger jump to a Power Conference in the coming years and could view the rebuilt Pac-12 as a lateral move.

If Memphis is still a target for the league, it would likely be as a football-only member (according to reporting from ESPN's Pete Thamel and others), with the school uninterested in forcing its non-revenue sports to regularly travel to the West Coast. Texas State was willing to make that concession, however, because the jump to the Pac-12 considerably improves the school’s national profile.