Mountain West Announces ‘Scheduling Agreement’ With Pac-2

For the majority of this football season, any sense of normalcy has been upside down. Teams, especially in the Pac-12, have been bailing on their conferences and falling into the inevitable 'realignment' chatter that has been going on for years. Now, in the West, the Pac-12 is down to just TWO teams and many expected a merger from them.

Here in Boise, fans were hoping this would be Boise State's chance to get into a Power 5 conference.

Are they ready for that challenge?

News broke this morning that no--there is no conference merger set for the immediate future. An agreement, however, has been rolled out.

In a statement released by the Mountain West Conference, the following insight was shared:

Next season, all 12 MW teams will play seven traditional Conference football games in addition to one contest against either Washington State or Oregon State for a total of eight games (four home and four away). The games against OSU and WSU will not count toward the conference standings, and neither Pac-12 school is eligible for the MW championship game. The Mountain West is currently working on the football schedule and will release matchups soon.

Many fans wish that these conferences would just merge--however the Pac-2 is clearly wanting to make the best and most strategic move for its programs. While geographically, the merger makes great sense--there are other elements that don't, such as market size and even academic status of the Mountain West schools compared to Washington State and Oregon State.

Time will tell what this might mean for Boise State's football schedule, who already has Oregon and Oregon State on their 2024 slate.

Here's a look at some of the stadiums of the Mountain West Conference!