Wow.
Texas State is the heavy favorite, per ESPN sources, to be issued a formal Pac-12 invitation. The league is still engaged with other schools, per sources, but Texas State has clearly emerged at the forefront of that group.
On July 1, the buyout for Texas State to leave the Sun Belt for the 2026-27 season will rise from $5 million to $10 million. This is obviously a bigger motivator for Texas State than the Pac-12, but it’s seemingly a significant enough deadline to trigger action.
For the Pac-12 to bring in a new partner in a time of financial uncertainty for the league, it would make sense to offer Texas State prior to July 1. After all, the Pac-12 needs an eighth football member for 2026, so they have their own deadline looming.
In realignment, of course, nothing is official until it’s signed. And nothing is formal until it’s completed. So with Texas State and the Pac-12, sources said the best way to explain the courtship is that the league is currently exploring making an offer in the upcoming weeks.
Texas State has loomed for months as the favorite to join the league and was prominently discussed in the Pac-12’s virtual meeting earlier this week. It has been the league’s top target for months and is expected to have voting support, as the league’s presidents are enamored with a foothold in the state and [university President Kelly] Damphousse’s leadership.
Texas State is booming as a university with an enrollment of more than 40,000, and it boasts a lot of tenets of football potential, with a rich local talent base and a rising young coach, G.J. Kinne, at the helm.
The league’s presidents won’t vote on Texas State until they are ready for the process to unfold in rapid-fire succession. That’s expected to come before July 1. Texas State turned down a verbal offer from the Mountain West last fall, which athletic director Don Coryell called “preliminary discussions with an interested conference.”
Texas State, if the Pac-12 process unfolds as expected, would be the league’s ninth member overall and eighth football member. Part of the feeling of inevitability of the invitation is tied to necessity. The league needs to grow to eight football members in order to qualify as an FBS conference. (Gonzaga is the non-football member.) Internally at the Pac-12, Texas State has long been viewed as the best readily available option for that eighth spot.
The exit fee looms as a significant motivator, as Texas State would join to start the 2026 season.
See here, here, and here for some background. Gotta hand it to Oregon State and Washington State for making so much lemonade out of the mess they were handed. I don’t know whether the new PAC-12 will be considered to be a “major” conference anymore, but the fact that it still exists is nothing short of amazing.
CBS Sports adds on.
Texas State was a power at the Division II level before moving up to I-AA in the 1980s, winning a pair of national titles under legendary coach Jim Wacker. Dennis Franchione helped transition the Bobcats to the FBS level in 2012, and the program landed in a resurgent Sun Belt one year later. Until Kinne arrived in 2023, though, the program posted eight straight losing seasons and zero bowl appearances. In two years, Kinne has notched 16 wins and consecutive First Responder Bowl victories in the past two years.
So why is Texas State such a hot commodity in the realignment world? It has everything to do with being in the right place at the right time.
The college football landscape has shifted dramatically over the past five years, and no state has felt those changes more than Texas. The Longhorns’ departure for the SEC shook the state. If Texas State ultimately leaves the Sun Belt for the Pac-12, it will be the ninth out of 13 FBS teams in the state to change affiliations since 2021. The lower levels have been even more impacted, including Sam Houston’s ascension from FCS to the FBS level.
At this time, seven of the nine FBS conferences feature at least one team in the state of Texas. Three of the four Power Four leagues also boast a representative after the ACC added SMU last season. The only exceptions are Midwest-based conferences Big Ten and MAC.
The relationship between Texas and football goes without saying, and makes even the middle and lower class of FBS teams intriguing investments. The AAC was attracted by access to major markets when they added North Texas, Rice and UTSA. Recruiting inroads are also critical, and Texas is the greatest producer of football talent in the world.
But perhaps most important, Texas is one of the greatest growth markets in the country. Texas is adding more population than any state in the union, with much of it settling around Austin. That makes Texas State a major potential upside play as it continues to build its brand on the regional and national level.
They’ve come a long way in a short time, that’s for sure. I wish them good luck.
Terrible decision by Texas State.
They already lose a staggering $32 million per year on football/athletics in the low cost/compact Sun Belt. They will lose $50m a year in the ersatz and far flung Pac12. There wont be much incremental revenue for a conference filled with Utah State and Fresno.
These athletic department losses come at the expense of academics, affordability, and non-discrimination (disabled persons cannot equally access athletic benefits)