Mountain West has chance to reach 8 teams before Pac-12 with latest expansion targets update

What a difference a few days can make. Earlier this week, it looked like the Mountain West was on life support after the Pac-12 announced that it had poached five schools — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State and San Diego State — that represented some of the biggest brands in the conference. Another Mountain West school, UNLV, was rumored to be next, and it felt like it wouldn't be long before the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Now, though, it's the new Pac-12 that appears to be floundering a bit, while the Mountain West isn't just surviving — it's looking to go on the attack itself. The turning point came on Thursday when financial incentives convinced UNLV not to jump ship. That stopped the bleeding, and the remaining six members of the conference — Air Force, New Mexico, Nevada, San Jose State, Wyoming and Hawaii — pledged their commitment on Thursday.

Both conferences are now sitting on seven members, one shy of the minimum under NCAA bylaws. The Pac-12 has been striking out of late; it tried to pivot to the AAC but was quickly rebuffed by Tulane, Memphis, USF and UTSA. The Mountain West, meanwhile, has some expansion targets of its own, and it could be poised to beat its West Coast rival to the punch.

Mountain West expansion targets revealed as conference eyes eighth team

Per ESPN's Pete Thamel, Texas State is at the top of the Mountain West's wish list, with the conference hoping the Bobcats will join as an all-sports member. It's also turned its attention to the MAC, making overtures toward Northern Illinois and Toledo as football-only members. If the MWC goes 3-for-3 here, that would get it back up to 10 schools — and make it a pretty spicy G5 conference to boot, given Toledo's recent success and Texas State's rise under GJ Kinne.

It remains to be seen whether NIU or Toledo would be willing to jump ship; through every round of realignment, the MAC has been the one conference to present a unified front and is just about the only geographically coherent conference left standing. Even just adding Texas State, however, would be a huge coup, both to stave off an existential threat and to add a school that won't stress travel too much and gives the conference an inroad to Texas recruiting.

There's a lot still to be settled here, but Mountain West leadership deserves a lot of credit for preventing an all-out fire sale. With the Pac-12 largely confined to the West Coast — and cross-country travel is a much tougher sell at the G5 level — they could be the ones left standing when the music stops, which would be a shocking turn of events.