UC Davis Athletics Joining Mountain West - Football to Follow I would argue that building the base (revenue, operations, scholarships, staffing, NIL, etc.) and not "moving up" at this juncture outweighs the allure of being an FBS program in the MWC. TV money? Try $3.5-4m per MWC member school for 2026. Is that worth scuttling all that has been built to stabilize the jump to FCS and now to contend for the FCS national championship? Just so fans can watch UNLV, SJSU, USAFA, Hawaii, and UNM roll into Davis every other year, or turn on their TVs to watch the Northern Illinois, UTEP, or Wyoming games, for example? "Bigger" isn't always better. Davis is
already on par with the bottom third of the MWC on the football field. In fact, the Aggies are capable of beating most MWC programs in a one time game. However, it's different having to do it week after week after week. If they move up and move into the top third, the program is aspiring for the LA Bowl hosted by Grok, the Snoop Dawg Arizona Bowl, and the Hawaii or New Mexico Bowls, respectively. Why?
Finish what's been started. Let's build it up and advance past the Quarters. Support what's going on now. Move up when the program is FULLY ready, if ever.
Eight teams have made the jump from FCS to FBS recently, and most of them we probably can't name without an AI search. I'll give it a shot: JMU, Old Dominion, App State, Coastal, maybe UMass since I read the article about Rocco, and oh yeah, SAC STATE. One of those teams has received a joke of a playoff invite (JMU) which never should have happened. The rest are either in decline or playing in crappy bowl games winning 6 games every year.