Northern Illinois joining Mountain West and the 3 weirdest moves of conference realignment

Well, folks, it's official. The Northern Illinois Huskies will be joining the Mountain West Conference in 2026 as a football-only member. The Rocky Mountain-based league made the announcement Tuesday as it rounds out the final changes to its membership in the wake of some major departures.

The current two-team Pac-12 Conference will be adding five Mountain West staples in the same year, draining the league of some of its top programs. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State will all become full-time Pac-12 teams in 2026 with West Coast Conference juggernaut Gonzaga joining as a basketball-only school.

The Mountain West had to scramble to add an additional school to stay at the NCAA eight-team minimum to remain FBS eligible. The Huskies accepted the invitation and now the conference will span four time zones. In addition, Grand Canyon University and UC Davis will also join as basketball-only members.

NIU to the Mountain West is just the latest wacky move in conference realignment

The Mid-American Conference isn't the first to have its pantry raided during realignment. In fact, it didn't even get affected that bad compared to others in recent months.

The aforementioned Pac-12 lost 10 members to three different conferences in 2023 but the weirdest of the shifts was certainly seeing Pacific Coast-based schools playing in Midwest and East Coast leagues. Specifically, Stanford and California joining the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was jarring. It would've been weird enough to see Dallas-based Southern Methodist (SMU) in the ACC but now you might as well call it the "All Coasts Conference" instead.

USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington playing in the Big Ten looks odd geographically but from a competition standpoint it was inevitable. Now it feels like every conference has to touch all four continental time zones.

But sometimes, like the NIU move, the additions seem nonsensical. Like in 2022 when the Big 12 added Cincinnati and Central Florida from the American Athletic Conference. There really wasn't much to that besides the two programs being relevant in recent years from a couple miracle seasons.

If the Mountain West viewed NIU, in fairness the MAC's most successful program, in such a favorable light after its massive upset over Notre Dame earlier this season, then that's a gamble it must be willing to take in order to survive as a conference.