Does Utah State have a case for Pac-12 membership?

If it is possible, feelings of optimism and pessimism are running concurrently within the hearts of most residents of Cache Valley right now.
Late Wednesday night, news broke that the Pac-12 — currently consisting of only Oregon State and Washington State — is expanding by adding four current Mountain West schools:
The four schools will join the league in 2026; the conference must add at least two additional schools by that same year in order to retain its status as an FBS conference.
The MW will receive a windfall with the realignment — upward of $111 million per Geoff Grammer of The Albuquerque Journal — thanks to exit fees for the four programs that are leaving, plus a fee required by the MW of the Pac-12 for poaching its schools.
On one hand, the Broncos, Rams, Bulldogs and Aztecs leaving the MW feels like something of a death knell for Utah State’s current conference.
The Mountain West was, arguably, the best non-power conference in the country — an argument can be made for the American (AAC) — but the loss of four notable programs relegates the MW to a tier beneath the AAC and in all likelihood the Sun Belt, putting the league on par with the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and Conference USA.
And yet, the influx of cash, significant cash at that, could offer the MW a chance to successfully pivot and maybe add schools that could help stabilize the league.
Realistically though, the fate of the MW isn’t the most pressing issue on the minds of Aggie fans and fans of any of the eight remaining MW schools.
Potential Pac-12 membership is.
Nearly every remaining MW team will want to join the Pac-12 now, as it promises to be the best — on paper — Group of Five (or six, depending on your view of the Pac-12) conference in the country.
So does Utah State have a case for inclusion?
Per the Pac-12, five “prioritized measures and established criteria” were used to determine the additions of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State. And the odds are those same criteria will be used to determine future additions. They include the following:
If conference realignment was solely about the success of programs, especially when it comes to the revenue sports of football and men’s basketball, USU would be a shoo-in for the new-look Pac-12.
Over the last decade-plus, Utah State has been one of the best schools in the MW in both sports — consistently successful while frequently competing for conference championships.
Here are some of the numbers:
The list of achievements could continue, percolating down to individual player accolades, success of NFL and NBA draft picks and more.
Since joining the MW, Utah State has been, on the whole, one of the better schools in the league and that is before you bring in nonrevenue sports like women’s volleyball, women’s soccer, gymnastics, track and field, etc.
Utah State has shown a “commitment to athletics success,” demonstrated by how well Aggie teams have performed on the whole.
Conference realignment is not all about wins and losses, though.
Also working in the Aggies’ favor is the stated desire of the Pac-12 to add teams that make sense in regards to “geography and logistics.”
Logan and Utah State University is well situated geographically when it comes to the future iteration of the Pac-12.
No current or announced Pac-12 school is more than 900 miles from Logan. Geographically speaking, USU fits the current Pac-12 especially well, with Utah bordering Idaho and Colorado, specifically.
Logan also has an airport — Logan-Cache Airport — if need be, and Salt Lake City International Airport is only an 88-mile drive from Maverik Stadium.
Travel concerns in regard to Utah State wouldn’t exist in the Pac-12, save for maybe winter drives through Sardine Canyon.
Academics is another area where Utah State has an argument, albeit less of a definitive one, for Pac-12 inclusion.
The Pac-12 that included Stanford, Cal, UCLA and USC is no more and Utah State ranks OK when compared with current/future Pac-12 universities.
According to the latest rankings from U.S. News and World Report, Utah State is ranked No. 269th among national universities, also ranking No. 145 in top public schools, No. 120 in best undergraduate engineering programs, and No. 217 in economics, with a ranking of No. 389 in top performers on social mobility.
On the whole, Utah State — a Carnegie-recognized R1 institution — rates better academically than Boise State, which comes in at No. 332 nationally and No. 176 among public schools.
The other five Pac-12 schools are all in a different tier, all ranking among the top 200 universities nationally (Fresno State comes in the lowest of the group at No. 185) and four of the five are ranked among the top 100 public schools in the United States (Fresno State just misses the cut at No. 101).
For as many arguments as there are to be had for the Aggies to be included in the Pac-12, there are an equal, if not greater, number of arguments for USU to be left behind.
Perhaps working the most against Utah State is media and brand.
On the field, the Aggies have contributed plenty of money to the Mountain West over the years.
In terms of postseason payouts, Utah State has made just under $9 million in basketball and a little under $8.5 million in football, which has made the Aggies the third-most profitable — again in terms of postseason payouts — school in the MW, behind only Boise State and San Diego State.
That said, per the Knight Commission, USU was middle of the road in the conference in revenues last season (2023), bringing in just under $52 million. The Aggies’ expenses were nearly $51.5 million, however.
By way of comparison, San Diego State, Colorado State and Boise State were three of the top four revenue producers in the MW, with SDSU brining in over $100 million, and CSU and BSU bringing in $64 million and $60 million, respectively.
Also hurting the Aggies is their television market.
Logan is considered part of the Salt Lake City market, according to the Nielsen rankings, which rates No. 27 in the country. But with the Utah Utes and BYU Cougars also in the market, USU’s share of that is considerably lower.
By way of comparison, Boise State has its own television market, even though it rates No. 97 nationally. All other Pac-12 members have their own TV markets except for Colorado State, with Fort Collins part of the Denver market, which rates No. 17 nationally.
Also hurting USU is the size of the Logan metropolitan area.
Cache Valley’s population was estimated at 155,362 in 2022. That is by far the smallest population surrounding a Pac-12 school. The greater Fort Collins area has an estimated 359,000 and that is the smallest of any of the Pac-12 schools. The largest is San Diego, with an estimated population of 3,345,000.
Put simply, Utah State doesn’t have anywhere close to the population base — potential fan base and television viewers — as do the MW schools that are leaving for the Pac-12.
Another way to look at it is this: Utah State was ranked No. 117 in the country in viewership numbers in 2023, per Medium, with 54,700 on average taking in Utah State football games over the course of the season.
The lowest-ranking Pac-12 school, per Medium, was San Diego State, which came in at No. 86 overall with 192,000 viewers on average watching over the course of the season.
Utah State may have a brand people recognize — especially in football and basketball — but it doesn’t have a brand that people tune in for.
Also working against Utah State’s hopes of Pac-12 inclusion is the universities struggles with “culture and student-athlete welfare.”
On Aug. 31, Utah State was given notice of “substantial noncompliance” from the U.S. Department of Justice, in regards to an agreement made by the university in 2020 to address “persisting climate concerns in the USU football program.”
USU was given 45 days from receipt of the letter to “take action to correct the areas of noncompliance,” the latest in a string of attempts to improve the culture at Utah State.
The university has improved on the whole since 2017, when the DOJ first took notice of USU for “wide failures in USU’s processes to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.”
According to Utah State, a 2023 survey of students showed that 98% of respondents said they feel safe on their USU campus, compared to 93% in 2017. And student participants (86%) thought that USU officials have handled incidents against students in a fair and responsible manner, up from 52% in a 2017 student survey.
Still, the university and its athletic department, according to the Department of Justice, have not come close to cultivating the kind of “culture and student-athlete welfare,” that would make USU appealing to the Pac-12. Not yet, anyway.
Unfortunately for Utah State, very few believe the Aggies have a genuine shot at joining the Pac-12.
At least when it comes to national college athletics analysts.
Writes Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, “If the Pac-12′s next preferred expansion targets were in the Mountain West beyond the four already named, they’d likely have taken them this week.”
Dellenger considers the next targets for Pac-12 expansion to most likely be current AAC teams. He mentions Memphis, Tulane, UTSA, North Texas, Rice and South Florida.
And the urge to get into the state of Texas could also lead the Pac-12 to look to the Sun Belt and a team like Texas State.
“If given the chance — not all will get interest from the Pac-12 (this is speculative) — these schools must decide if moving to a conference across the country, in a completely different region and cultural fit, is offset by the Pac-12′s brand and television value,” Dellenger writes.
If the Pac-12 strikes out with eastward expansion, Dellenger considers UNLV and Nevada the most likely adds from the MW, though UNLV moving by itself would probably be the ideal.
Dellenger isn’t alone in thinking that the Pac-12 will turn east, though, before attempting to poach any more MW teams.
The Associated Press’ Ralph D. Russo tabbed UTSA, Memphis and Tulane as the most likely targets.
Chris Vannini of The Athletic named Stanford and Cal the dream adds for the Pac-12 — but those schools are pretty much locked into the ACC, which needs to remain at 15 members to keep its television deal with ESPN intact.
When it comes to potential further additions from the MW, Vannini singled out four teams — UNLV, Air Force, Wyoming and New Mexico — none of which were Utah State.
By and large, Utah State is an afterthought in the minds of most when it comes to future Pac-12 membership.
It isn’t an unfamiliar place for USU, given its history with conference realignment, but it is a position that could grow increasingly uncomfortable for the Aggies with the seemingly never-ending changes happening across college football.
Especially if the MW loses more schools, either to the Pac-12 or to other Group of Five leagues.
For now, though, hope can remain, most likely alongside a feeling of dread.