The reformed Pac-12 Conference is still growing, as the cliff-hanging league announced the addition of a new member out of the Lone Star State this week: the Texas State Bobcats.
BREAKING: Texas State has officially agreed to join the Pac-12 beginning in 2026 @TxStateBobcats @pac12 🚨 pic.twitter.com/DT2cJwRdt1
— College Transfer Portal (@CollegeFBPortal) June 26, 2025
A fascinating move for a conference hoping to re-establish itself as a power league, as its new members include original Pac inclusions Washington State and Oregon State, along with a heap of some most notable Mountain West migrants.
Adding Gonzaga, a perennial power on the hardwood, was a great move for basketball. Unfortunately, the Spokane-based private school doesn't come with a football team as a selling point. The league remained at an awkward 7 FBS members.
In an attempt to strengthen their reputation beyond purely being a premium version of the MWC (Mountain West Plus, if you will), the league has looked to the Sun Belt to round out their football membership in the short term.
And by all accounts, Texas State is a program on the rise. Based in a football hotbed, the Bobcats have long been dormant before joining the SBC in 2013, and haven't successfully "broken out" in the decade or so that they've sat in the FBS.
Naturally, TSU hasn't become like its older brother in Austin yet, but the Pac-12 is banking on the university's upside on the gridiron, and access to one of the strongest states for football recruiting in the nation. Still, with all the players looking to play D-1 football in the state of Texas, the second-largest state in the nation likewise contains a sea of strong contenders.
The Power Four separate themselves from those "below" more and more by the year. The Pac-12 could be in desperation mode to keep from being left behind in the shifting sands of conference realignment. After all, what's going to stop a school like Boise State or Gonzaga from jumping to the Big 12, for example, given the opportunity?
The Pac-12 has a reputation to restore. Is Texas State the answer? The honest answer is probably not, unfortunately, but time will tell. I've been wrong before.