The best and worst scenarios for Utah State in latest conference realignment – Cache Valley Daily

LOGAN – College football is experiencing another earthquake of realignment, even bigger than that of the late 2000s/early 2010 that saw half a dozen or so teams hopping to and between the Power 5 conferences. In the next few seasons we’ll see Texas and Oklahoma move to the SEC with USC and UCLA hopping over to the Big Ten. Then the Big 12, in an effort to replace the Longhorns and Sooners, have opted to add four teams — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — to its ranks. And just recently, Colorado announced it will be re-joining the Big 12 after a dozen years in the Pac-12.

But that’s not all! Reports over the weekend, most prominently Jack McGuire, hint at more additions by the Big Ten. The report claims the already 16-team Big Ten will add Washington and Oregon from the Pac-12 along with Florida State and Clemson from the ACC.

Let’s unpack this visually for a second to see how the Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 would look assuming all of these changes, including the report from McGuire, take place by the start of the 2024 season.

The Big Ten ballooning all the way to 20 teams seems a bit extreme considering 16 teams is generally seen as the max in the current environment. The SEC is set to go to 16 with Oklahoma and Texas joining, the Big 12 (currently poised to be at 13 teams) is likely unwilling to go above 16 with its media deal not offering more benefits beyond that cap. And of course the Big 10 is already going to 16 teams in adding UCLA/USC.

Earlier in July, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said he’d like to get to 14 teams post-Oklahoma/Texas. That means at least one more team in Yormark’s ideal world. But rumors persist that the Big 12 might consider expanding to 16 teams. If the Big 10 decides to stand pat, that’d likely mean that Washington and Oregon go to the Big 12 instead. Arizona or Utah could round out the three additional teams to get the Big 12 to a theoretical 16 teams.

Let’s visualize this second scenario with each of the Big 12/Big Ten going to 16 teams and what the remnants Pac-12 would look like.

The main area of speculation right now is the eventual fates of Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Utah. There are multiple options for Oregon and Washington as they’d be welcome in either of the Big Ten or Big 12 assuming the two conferences are willing to keep expanding. For Arizona and Utah, they’ll be fighting each other for what may be a final spot in Big 12 expansion.

But in the midst of all this ruckus it’s fair for any Group of Five team, such as Utah State (and really most of the Mountain West), to ask what chair they’ll be sitting in when this most recent game of musical chairs ends (or the more grim question, will they have a chair at all?).

The Aggies have benefited much from conference realignment in the past, constantly playing catch-up being left hung out to dry by its sibling universities from the south. Greater than all the grievances for the Aggies was being shunned from joining the Western Athletic Conference in 1962. As the Skyline collapsed, BYU and Utah both made it into the newly-formed WAC but stonewalled USU’s attempts to latch on.

Missing out on joining the WAC sent the Aggies into a 16-year stretch of independence, stifling the growth of a program that was overtaking BYU and Utah in football and basketball. USU missed out on several trips to bowl games in the 1970s due to lack of conference tie-ins. Even after independence, Utah State spent 26 years bouncing between the PCAA, Big West, independence again, and even the Sun Belt before making it into the WAC in 2005.

Of course, by the time USU climbed into the WAC, the Cougars and Utes had migrated to the Mountain West which formed in 1999. The Aggies only made it into the WAC because BYU and Utah were no longer there to stop them. The same was true for USU joining the Mountain West in 2013, the Utes and Cougars had gone their separate ways once again.

While Utah State’s previous problems with conference realignment have been tied to schools in Salt Lake and Utah counties, this most recent run – and the potential problems that come with them – have nothing to do with BYU and Utah. But it could come with the too-familiar feeling of being left behind in a lesser conference.

The Aggies have done rather well to make it to the Mountain West. It may not be a “power” conference, but it’s literally the next-best thing. The Mountain West is at the top of the G5/mid-major conferences. It’s respectable enough to regularly have teams ranked in the AP Poll in both football and basketball, get teams into quality bowls and land multiple teams in the NCAA Tournament. Utah State’s current situation conference-wise is easily the best it has ever managed in its 131-year athletics history.

This near-ideal situation is threatened by the collapse of the Pac-12. The losses of USC, UCLA, Colorado, and potentially Oregon, Washington plus either or both of Arizona/Utah, leaves the Pac-12 with likely only one choice for survival: pick apart much of the Mountain West.

In the wake of the announced departures from the Pac-12, Mountain West schools have been at the top of lists on who may be replacements for the Pac-12’s losses. San Diego State certainly made its wishes plain with the drama it stirred up by trying to set up talks with the Mountain West to arrange a deal to help it get into the Pac-12 by 2024 without burdensome fees. Colorado State and UNLV have also come up, the former especially since Colorado’s announced exodus. Boise State, much to the chagrin of their fans and media, are quite conspicuously absent from all the talk.

If the worst-case scenario occurs, the Pac-12 would likely absorb all three of SDSU, Colorado State and UNLV with maybe one more depending on if the conference wants to get back to 10 teams or 12 and whether they’d be willing to add teams like Memphis, SMU, Tulane or Rice in lieu of another Mountain West team. That “one more team” would likely be Fresno State or Boise State.

While it wouldn’t be the death of the Mountain West to lose SDSU, CSU and UNLV it would be a brutal blow. Those three schools are all in the top four in athletics spending for the conference with some of the best facilities. Not to mention they represent ties to the southern California, Las Vegas and Colorado markets, the former two being especially massive potential losses.

The remaining conference would have quality programs to lead it, but the holes left by three departing teams would have to be filled by somebody. And the lack of quality candidates would be as much of a problem to the Mountain West as it currently is for the Pac-12. The conference would ultimately be one with less spending, more teams at the bottom with mediocre to bad facilities, and less prestige on and off the field. Essentially, it’d be like the WAC of the mid-2000s. Some quality teams but with some clear bottom-feeders (Utah State standing somewhere in the middle to upper half of that spectrum).

Let’s not end on a scenario of doom-and-gloom. There’s an ideal timeline where the Mountain West grows and becomes a better conference, similar to its late 2000s prowess when Utah, BYU and TCU were all in the conference. It’s not a likely set of events, but it’s possible which is what counts.

In an ideal world for the Mountain West (and also USU since at this point its interests align almost perfectly with the MW), the Pac-12 would undergo essentially complete annihilation. In addition to the losses already incurred, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Stanford and Utah would all leave. Where each goes isn’t that important but the exodus would have to leave the Pac-12 with less than half a dozen teams.

At that point of desperation, the only choice for most of the remaining Pac-12 schools would essentially be to join with the Mountain West, either merging the conferences or effectively all teams making the move one way or the other. Some teams like Cal and Arizona State may opt for independence rather than join up with the Mountain (Stanford leaving the Pac-12 would likely be for independence anyway), but adding Oregon State and Washington State would at the very least make for a significantly better conference. In the most ideal world, the Mountain West would add four former Pac-12 teams and while we’re living in the ideal world we’ll cap it off by throwing in Gonzaga, filling out the conference to 16 teams in basketball as well.

The merging of the Pac-12 and Mountain West scenario (plus Gonzaga)

1. Air Force
2. Arizona State
3. Boise State
4. California
5. Colorado State
6. Fresno State
7. Gonzaga (basketball/all other sports)
8. Hawaii (football only)
9. Nevada
10. New Mexico
11. Oregon State
12. San Diego State
13. San Jose State
14. UNLV
15. Utah State
16. Washington State
17. Wyoming

This final scenario is like the 1 in 14,000,605 odds from the Avengers: Endgame. It’d be the storybook ending (from Utah State’s perspective) to this round of re-alignment and would assure continued growth rather than yet another setback. It’s unlikely. It’d take true desperation on the part of a dozen schools and clever negotiation from the Mountain West to pull it off. But dreaming the impossible dream can’t exactly hurt, can it?