What's ahead in the MWC? Two new teams including N...
Key takeaways
- It's the name of the game if you're in the throes of March Madness, and it's the name of the game if you're an athletics conference.
- The Mountain West seems to have as many what-ifs as any major conference: It briefly looked like it could benefit significantly from the conference realignment wars of the early-2010s but instead lost BYU, TCU and Utah.
- Leading up to the 2026 season, we're previewing every conference in college football.
Why this matters: a sports story that could shift standings, legacies, or fan conversations.
Stanford. (1:18)
Survive and advance. It's the name of the game if you're in the throes of March Madness, and it's the name of the game if you're an athletics conference.
The Mountain West seems to have as many what-ifs as any major conference: It briefly looked like it could benefit significantly from the conference realignment wars of the early-2010s but instead lost BYU, TCU and Utah. It looked like it might benefit from the Pac-12's demise and become the premier Western conference in college sports -- and teased me with the thought of a tiered conference with relegation -- but instead the Pac-12 used the power of its name and intellectual property to pull itself back together and take some of the MWC's sturdiest football programs (Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State). But what do you do? Survive and advance. The MWC held onto a rising UNLV program and grabbed UTEP, Northern Illinois and FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, and on we go.