What is the level of competition difference for sports other than football and basketball? I suspect not much.

I think they’d like 9 or 10 football for scheduling. With 8, you have 5 OOC games which would be challenging.

yes. Although in years playing at Hawaii it may be easier.

Would be so curious to have been a fly on the wall during Tim Plough day today. Curious if he had conversations with his players about all this realignment stuff?

In my eyes, this means a move for football to the MWC is a matter of when not if. This is the kick in the pants for fundraising, the context of which wasn’t included in Rocko’s tweet back in September, to get there. Stadium capacity and the number of scholarships will need to increase before that occurs (note: more than those needed for football to remain compliant with Title IX, unless we’re slashing a men’s sport).

The Big West hasn’t really been a good geographical fit for a while with everyone outside of Poly, still a good distance away (and Hawaii), a short bus ride distant from one another. This gets the Ags back with former rival UNR, gets into the Bay Area, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, a foot into Texas (barely) with UTEP, and again a trip to Hawaii. Also, as mentioned earlier, I imagine this makes OOC scheduling for non-football sports with other D1 schools in the area (Cal, Stanford, Santa Clara, St. Mary’s, Pacific, USF) more appealing for said schools.

totally agree

I wonder where men’s soccer will play?

do they stay in the Big West?

they aren’t mentioned in the article as sports staying in Big West.

But the MW only has womens soccer, right, no mens?

Part of me wonders if a stadium expansion/football membership could possibly be coming once the FCS playoffs are over… seems sort of in line with them inviting NIU potentially to get to 10 football members

The Mountain West Instagram post announcing the news is being met with expected responses. Can’t wait to start beating their schools and hopefully getting our football program in there as well.

Do we think we would get better recruits for football as a result of this? There is no doubt we get better basketball talent in my eyes but I’m curious about football.

How is it a step down academically? We don't lower the admission standards according to who we play

Did you see this coming, Mike? You often seem to have some inside info before the rest of us do.

Dr. May telegraphed this last year on a halftime TV interview, he said they were working on something "big", but couldn't share it presently. "Big" logically only meant a few things to me:

- join Pac 12
- join MWC
- expand UC Davis Health Stadium

Or two of three.

Academics:

- the UNLV types will have low admission standards, esp for revenue sports
- lots of lightweight majors
- there are other academic criteria and rankings where some members aren't on a UC footing

I copied this from username pblood40 in the Mountain West subreddit thread:

The biggest reason is that once you announce you are leaving FCS - FCS bans you from post season play. So if they are joining for football, they will likely not announce until after the FCS playoffs in January 2026

Props to Reno 1441 who found this info -

NCAA Bylaw 20.5.3 Championships Eligibility.

A member of Division I that has forwarded to the national office written notice of its intention to change its football membership classification from Championship Subdivision to Bowl Subdivision per Bylaw 20.5.2.1 no longer shall be eligible for participation in the Division I Football Championship.

super interesting! Will be curious/excited to see then….

Seriously, who cares what the UNLV admission standards are. I don't recall any Rhodes scholars coming out of Cal State Bakersfield, Fullerton, Long Beach, Hawaii, etc.

As of October 2023, the application fee for a college football team to transition from the FCS to FBS is $5 million.

MBB, Baseball, etc; I'd rather travel to see the Ags play San Jose State, Nevada, UNLV, Hawaii, and New Mexico than any of the Big West UC / CSU schools (all Southern California and without name recognition outside of California).

Thank you. I had seen some posts elsewhere that claimed it wouldn't impact this year but this makes more sense. I would be upset if I were a player and it were announced 4 days before their biggest game in DI program history (or tied for first with the EWU contest).

A little shy of 4 weeks to post more renderings on X and fundraise, ready…go.

MTB - that was my point about the men’s soccer; not sure where they go. Mercury News snippet today said 16 sports would move. Maybe men’s soccer stays in BWC?

BGA - caught me completely unawares. Unless it paves the way for football, it’s a bit of a head scratcher.

Assumption in some article I read was that men’s soccer, beach volleyball and both water polo teams will stay in the Big West. Men’s soccer already has one associate member in Slack. Men’s water polo needs Ags (or a new team) to stay at six.

Having nothing to do with the Mountain West move field hockey is now without a league. Hard to see how they can survive, which creates Title IX problems.

Neglecting to mention Mens Soccer while mentioning everything else in too important to just chalk up to an oversight. They have to clarify this.

they put somewhere in the press release they are hoping to be able to stay as an affiliate member but are “prepared” to look at other options

Here's an article which mentions Jim Les' perspective.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/sports/2024/12/10/hawaii-uc-davis-leaves-big-west-for-mountain-west-in-2026-?cid=app_share

https://www.kcra.com/article/uc-davis-mountain-west-conference-2026/63151531

It's possible that this really is an ideal situation for the university and the football program specifically. More prestigious, bigger budget conference with FBS peers and a ready-made destination for when the football program is ready to move up (and/or it is desperately needed to be called up by the MWC). It will hopefully help light a fire under the butts of everyone within the University and outside supporters to get the football program better situated to move up.

Cherry on top is leapfrogging Sac despite all their public posturing and lobbying.