As the 2024 college football season heads into October, the Mountain West Conference is at the center of some of the biggest storylines in the sport.
UNLV enters Week 6 of the season undefeated and ranked No. 23 in the US LBM Coaches Poll behind a high-powered offense that didn’t lose a step despite starting quarterback Matthew Sluka leaving the program following a much-publicized dispute over NIL payments.
Boise State looks like perhaps the best team from outside the sport’s “Power Four” conferences and has what might be the Heisman Trophy frontrunner on its roster in running back Ashton Jeanty, who has rushed for 845 yards and 13 touchdowns in the Broncos’ first four games.
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At least some of the attention the Mountain West has received, though, is for reasons that go far beyond the football field.
Over the past several weeks, the conference has been engaged in a fight for its survival. Last month, the league lost a handful of its members to the Pac-12 and had to work tirelessly to keep the rest aboard. In the meantime, conference leadership has looked to fortify its ranks and get enough schools so that it can be a viable entity — all while the Pac-12 works to do the same in what is becoming a high-stakes race between college football’s two western-based conferences.
Here’s what you need to know about the Mountain West, its current membership, what schools it has lost and more:
How many schools are in the Mountain West?
The Mountain West currently has 12 members, but following a series of departures that will become official in advance of the 2026-27 season, it will be down to just six full-time members. Hawai’i is a football-only member that competes in the Big West Conference in most other sports.
The Mountain West lost nearly half of its membership on Sept. 12, when it was officially announced that San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State were leaving the conference for the Pac-12. Eleven days later, Utah State also left for the Pac-12.
The fight with the Pac-12 for members came shortly after it appeared as though the two leagues were working in relative harmony. After 10 of the Pac-12’s 12 members left for other conferences, the league’s two remaining schools, Washington State and Oregon State, reached a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West for the 2024 football season. The Cougars and Beavers are playing eight and seven Mountain West programs, respectively, this season.
In early September, however, it was revealed that the two sides would not extend the agreement into the 2025 season. In a lawsuit it filed last week, the Pac-12 claimed the Mountain West was asking for $30 million to continue the agreement into 2025, more than doubling the $14 million the Pac-12 paid for the same number of games in 2024.
Fewer than two full weeks after deadline for an extension passed, the four Mountain West schools announced they were off to the Pac-12.
Unlike the Pac-12, which has existed in some form since 1915, the Mountain West is a relatively new entity. Upset with its place in the Western Athletic Conference, which had swelled to 16 teams, presidents from Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah and Wyoming met at Denver International Airport in 1998 and opted to break away from the WAC to form a new conference. After extending invitations to San Diego State, UNLV and New Mexico, the Mountain West was born and began competing in 1999.
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Mountain West expansion
After losing its four preeminent members in a single day, the Mountain West appeared to be in the same kind of vulnerable position the Pac-12 was only one year earlier.
The Mountain West, however, was able to fortify its ranks.
After trying unsuccessfully to lure Memphis and Tulane from the American Athletic Conference, the Pac-12 turned its gaze back to the Mountain West to continue adding members. The Mountain West, however, outflanked the Pac-12 by securing commitments from its six all-sports schools — most importantly, UNLV and Air Force — as well as football-only member Hawai’i. The seven institutions signed a memorandum of understanding to remain in the league and formally executed a grant of media rights that will run from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2032.
The Mountain West managed that feat by dangling financial incentives. By losing San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State to the Pac-12, the Mountain West will receive about $18 million in exit fees from each departing school, creating a pool of money it used to help convince much of its remaining membership to stay. Not everyone in that group is receiving an equal share. UNLV and Air Force will get 24.5% of the pool apiece. New Mexico, Nevada, San José State and Wyoming receive 11.5% each, while Hawai’i will get 5%.
“Our immediate priority was solidifying the membership of the Mountain West. Now our focus turns to our collective future on behalf of our student-athletes,” said Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement. “The agreements announced today mark a historic moment for the Mountain West and provide much-needed stability and clarity as the world of intercollegiate athletics continues to evolve rapidly. We are excited about our future and are executing our next steps in expanding the Mountain West. We will continue to prioritize the student-athlete experience and do all we can to support our institutions as they compete at the highest levels of intercollegiate athletics.”
Like the Pac-12, though, the Mountain West needs additional schools to reach the eight-member threshold required by the NCAA to be recognized as an FBS conference. Even with those reaffirmed commitments, it had six all-sport members, meaning it needed two more.
On Tuesday, the conference officially added UTEP to its ranks. The Miners, located in far west Texas near the New Mexico border, are a logical geographic fit that Nevarez said in a statement “restores historic rivalries with several of our member institutions within the geographic footprint and provides valuable exposure in the great State of Texas.”
The Mountain West’s Texas overtures weren’t just limited to UTEP. The league extended a verbal offer to Texas State, but the Bobcats declined, opting instead to remain in the Sun Belt Conference. According to Yahoo Sports, the Mountain West has had “deep and serious” discussions with Tarleton State, a Stephenville, Texas school that currently competes at the FCS level in football.
There were reports that the Mountain West was looking at potentially adding Northern Illinois and Toledo from the Mid-American Conference as football-only members, though Northern Illinois noted on Sept. 27 that it has not received a “formal offer to consider a change.”
On Thursday, Brett McMurphy of The Action Network reported the conference was in discussions with Hawai’i to add the Rainbow Warriors as a full-time member, bringing the conference to the required eight-team minimum.
In the meantime, the Mountain West won’t have to worry about the Pac-12 in the race to add members. Earlier this week, CBS Sports reported the Pac-12 was putting its expansion efforts on hold while it enters an evaluation of its potential media rights value with its current membership, which got a big addition this week with men’s basketball powerhouse Gonzaga coming aboard.
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Mountain West schools
After the latest rounds of realignment, here’s what the Mountain West will look like with its current membership and recently accepted new schools:
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UNLV
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Air Force
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New Mexico
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Nevada
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Wyoming
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San José State
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Hawai’i*
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UTEP**
* Football-only member
** Will join ahead of the 2026-27 academic year
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mountain West realignment: What to know in conference’s race vs Pac-12
