Commentary: The Pac-12 and Mountain West should get over hurt feelings and just merge

Since Texas and Oklahoma fractured the college sports world three years ago when they announced their intention to join the SEC, 33 schools have changed conferences. That’s nearly a quarter of the FBS, with more to come.

But when it comes to the Pac-12 and Mountain West and the bizarre situation they find themselves in, there’s no blaming the SEC or Big Ten. Only egos, stubbornness and a complete misevaluation of leverage. And both sides are at fault.

We’ve reached the dumbest stage of conference realignment, with potentially hundreds of millions of dollars being spent for no discernible change.

If your head is still spinning from this week, let me catch you up. The Pac-12 has seven members set for 2026, adding five Mountain West schools to Oregon State and Washington State and still in need of at least one more. The remaining Mountain West seven stuck together, needing at least two more members. The two western conferences are set to fight over schools like UTEP, Texas State and maybe even some schools from the MAC, for some inexplicable reason.

Oh, and the Pac-12 has sued the Mountain West over $55 million in poaching fees from a contract it signed less than a year ago.

Over the past two weeks, administrators, coaches and fans keep asking me: “Why didn’t the Pac-2 and Mountain West just merge?” You are not alone in thinking the current situation is nonsensical.

The reason is simple: The top schools wanted to drop the dead weight. The problem is, the plan didn’t work, and now they’ll compete over adding the same kind of schools they wanted to avoid in the first place. All because everyone is too stubborn and prideful to admit they misjudged the situation.

Say you’re sorry, get back together and move forward. While the Power Four fight over hundreds of millions of dollars, the only way to survive within the Group of Five is by cooperation. I love G5 football. I don’t want a P2 or P4 breakaway. But what are we doing here?

This problem started months ago. Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez and conference leadership miscalculated the leverage they thought they had over Oregon State and Washington State. After signing a one-year scheduling agreement for 2024 for $14 million, the Pac-12 alleges, the Mountain West wanted to increase the fees to $30 million for 2025. The two Pac-12 schools were insulted. So they began to work out their own scheduling plans, and the conferences left the negotiating table.

The Pac-12 pair then quickly sprung into action a plan to take the top Mountain West schools in Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State, a sudden move that stunned MW leadership. Revenge!

But the Pac-12 miscalculated how strong of a position it had created. With six members, it thought the best of the Group of Five would want to join. But the Pac-12 didn’t have concrete plans to pitch. It was all projections, speculation and unclear revenue splits. So Memphis, Tulane, USF and UTSA decided to stick with the American Athletic Conference, with its long ESPN deal, rather than paying tens of millions in exit fees to jump into the unknown (and increased travel). Memphis Athletic Director Ed Scott on Thursday called the offer a “bad” deal.

This is where the Pac-12 should’ve realized its plan hadn’t worked, and the two sides should have come together, merged and put the bad feelings behind them. The scheduling agreement signed last year stipulates it would cost nothing for the Pac-12 to add all 12 Mountain West schools.

Instead, the Pac-12 tried to pick off just a few more MW schools and filed a lawsuit to invalidate the poaching fees to which it had just recently agreed. It only got Utah State, whose football team lost to Temple a week ago. The rest of the MW signed a binding agreement to stay together, knowing it’s owed almost $150 million from all this. It’s an embarrassing set of events for everyone and a situation that only college sports could cook up.

It’s completely understandable how hurt Oregon State and Washington State are by the original Pac-12’s destruction, the result of greed and fear. OSU and WSU want to invest at a Power Four level and do not want to accept that they’ve been knocked down a peg. I understood the four MW defectors trying to gather up the biggest investing G5 schools. I understood the push for AAC schools to create the clear No. 1 G5 conference.

But it didn’t work. This is now a whole lot of money, trouble and hurt feelings, all because you wanted to get away from San Jose State, Nevada and Hawaii. Is what’s left that much better?

Now the Mountain West is showing interest in Northern Illinois and Toledo as football-only members, per a source briefed on the discussions, which feels like another desperate idea to avoid what everyone knows should happen. Are we instead going to rip apart another geographically sensible conference?

I’ve railed against high-level conference realignment as much as anyone, but at least Texas, Oklahoma, USC and the rest blew up the sport for boatloads of money. I get that. Here, we’re making strange moves for … what? A slight tick up in TV money? Trying to avoid a few of the lowest-regarded schools?

Everyone in college sports is terrified of the unknown future, both at a conference and NCAA level. They’re all trying to get above the potential cut line. It’s led to frantic and desperate ideas and decisions.

But the Pac-12 and Mountain West should never have reached this point. They could create a strong western outpost. College sports needs one. The American earlier this year informally pitched the idea of cooperation with the MW, but it never got off the ground. The top of the Group of Five should work together to help each other and show it’s worth remaining at the highest level of college football.

Instead, pride and hurt feelings have created one of the strangest paths of the realignment era, and it’s not going to help anyone.