There is no way to sugarcoat it: college athletics out West will feel different next season on and off the field, especially for our passionate sports writing crew at MWCConnection.
Where it truly counts?
Familiar rivalries will be reframed, travel maps redrawn, and long-held assumptions about where the Mountain West ends and the Pac-12 begins will be tested in real-time.
But different does not have to mean diminished and that reality may become clearer once the games actually start.
As the Pac-12 re-emerges
in 2026 with a retooled membership and the Mountain West pivots into its own reshaped identity, both conferences enter “Year One” not as adversaries, but as leagues trying to prove something slightly different about the future of college sports in the West.
Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould has consistently framed the league’s rebuild as an intentional reset rather than a scramble for survival.
“This is about creating stability, visibility, and long-term opportunity for our institutions,” Gould said in recent remarks. “We want to be nationally relevant, accessible to fans, and competitive at the highest levels.”
That message matters because the Pac-12’s first season back will be judged less by payout figures and more by perception. The league’s media approach, leaning into broad linear exposure through The CW and complementary partnerships, suggests an understanding that relevance in modern college sports isn’t only about dollars, but about being seen, talked about, and trusted by playoff committees and casual viewers alike.
On the field, the Pac-12’s top tier should be immediately competitive. There is enough recent success, infrastructure, and brand recognition among its core programs to avoid the “startup league” stigma. The larger question is depth. Early on, this version of the Pac-12 may feel top-heavy, but that is not uncommon for a conference finding its footing. If the league champion emerges with a clean or near-clean resumé, the College Football Playoff conversation becomes less theoretical and more practical.
Meanwhile, the Mountain West enters its next chapter with fewer national headlines, but perhaps more internal opportunity.
Commissioner Gloria Nevarez has been clear-eyed about the transition. “The Mountain West has always been built on resilience,” Nevarez said. “We’ve evolved before, and we’ll continue to evolve by prioritizing competitive excellence, institutional fit, and student-athlete experience.”
That evolution will be tested quickly.
With several high-profile departures, the Mountain West will no longer be judged by reputation alone. It will need performance, particularly in non-conference play, to maintain its standing as one of the strongest non-power leagues in the country.
The upside is that parity, long a Mountain West calling card, may increase.
Football races should be wide open, with fewer assumed favorites and more programs entering September believing they can contend. That unpredictability has value, even if it lacks the immediate cachet of ranked logos on a preseason graphic.
Basketball, as always, will be a key measuring stick.
The Mountain West has built real credibility in March over the last decade, and sustaining multi-bid NCAA Tournament relevance will be essential. Additions like Grand Canyon and UC Davis on the non-football side reflect a conference still thinking holistically about competitiveness and geography, even amid change.
There is also an unspoken reality hovering over both leagues: Year One is rarely clean.
New travel routines will affect the Olympic sports. Scheduling quirks lead to uneven rest. Road environments feel unfamiliar. Early-season results can look strange before patterns settle.
That may be especially true in basketball, where new conference alignments often produce a few “how did that happen?” outcomes before January.
Still, the broader picture is not as bleak as some would suggest.
The Pac-12 is not attempting to recreate its past; it is attempting to define a future that values access, clarity, and competitiveness.
The Mountain West is not collapsing; it is recalibrating, with an opportunity to elevate new programs into national relevance.
Perhaps most importantly, both leagues remain deeply Western in identity.
In an era of coast-to-coast conferences and overnight travel becoming routine, there is still value in regional coherence, shared time zones, and fan bases that can reasonably follow their teams.
The first year of this new alignment will not provide all the answers.
What it will provide is evidence; evidence of which programs adapt fastest, which leagues tell their story best, and which version of “success” resonates most with fans and decision-makers.
If there is one certainty heading into next season, it’s that the Mountain West and Pac-12 will no longer be defined solely by what they lost, but by what they choose to build next. And in a college sports landscape increasingly defined by uncertainty, that may be the most important step of all.
