The Pac-12 is pushing a narrative that it is a Top Five conference, and it certainly can make that case. But there is a wide gap between it and the four power leagues, some of which include schools that invest more just in football than half the Pac-12 does in their entire athletics departments.<\/p>\n
That includes Rutgers, which has averaged 1.8 wins per season in Big Ten play since it joined the conference in 2014. It spent $76.1 million on football last year, according to its NCAA revenue and expense report. Boise State put $75.6 million into its 18 sports programs, and ranked fourth among schools that on July 1 will join the Pac-12.<\/p>\n
But there is an important distinction to be made \u2014 if the Pac-12 can make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople talk about the power conferences like it\u2019s a binary thing, like all the schools in the power leagues are the same and all the schools that aren\u2019t in those leagues are different and that\u2019s just not true,\u201d Pac-12 deputy commissioner Rick Hart said on a stop in Fresno while on a tour of conference schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not measuring ourselves by Ohio State. We\u2019re not measuring ourselves by Texas. But I do think there are a number of programs that compete at that level or in those leagues who, absolutely, not only can we compete with them and beat them. We look a lot like them, and in many cases we have greater potential than some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how close to that level are the nine schools, eight that field football programs, that will form the new Pac-12?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Fresno State, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Utah State from the Mountain West, Oregon State and Washington State as holdovers from a Pac-12 decimated by realignment, and Texas State from the Sun Belt. Gonzaga, from the West Coast Conference, joins as a full member, but does not sponsor football.<\/p>\n
Some data points work in their favor. Others, not so much.<\/p>\n
The schools toward the bottom of the Big 12 Conference in football spending are not miles ahead of the schools in the Pac-12.<\/p>\n
For the Big 12, that would include:<\/p>\n
West Virginia: $34,153,489<\/p>\n
Iowa State: $33,289,781<\/p>\n
Oklahoma State: $32,830,617<\/p>\n
Cincinnati: $30,199,813<\/p>\n
Kansas State: $27,762,499<\/p>\n
And, at the top of the Pac-12:<\/p>\n
Colorado State: $37,791,844<\/p>\n
Boise State: $30,738,142<\/p>\n
Texas State: $23,116,059<\/p>\n
Oregon State: $23,847,864<\/p>\n
Washington State: $22,896,017<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the thing that is irritating about the (power conference) label,\u201d Hart said. \u201cIt\u2019s to suggest that somehow they are all at a different place and that\u2019s just not accurate. We believe we look the part when it comes to many of the schools in those leagues. That\u2019s where we want to be aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n
That has not translated well on the field, however. Here are the eight Pac-12 schools and how they have fared against power conference opponents, with their most recent victories:<\/p>\n
Colorado State: lost 12 in a row; Arkansas in 2018<\/p>\n
Boise State: lost 10 in a row; Florida State in 2019<\/p>\n
Utah State: lost 6 in a row; Oregon State in 2021<\/p>\n
Oregon State: lost 6 in a row; Purdue in 2024<\/p>\n
Washington State: lost 4 in a row; Washington in 2024<\/p>\n
Fresno State: lost 3 in a row; Arizona State in 2023<\/p>\n
Texas State: lost 2 in a row; Baylor in 2023<\/p>\n
San Diego State: lost 0 in a row; Cal in 2025<\/p>\n
The Pac-12 also has had fewer teams that were in College Football Playoff rankings on selection day since 2000 than the American Conference and the Sun Belt.<\/p>\n
American: 9 teams, 5 still in the league<\/p>\n
Sun Belt: 5 teams<\/p>\n
Pac-12: 4 teams<\/p>\n
Mountain West: 2 teams<\/p>\n
Conference USA: 2 teams, 1 still in the league<\/p>\n
Mid-American: 0 teams<\/p>\n
The fun part starts on a Friday, Sept. 4, when Fresno State plays at USC. The next day, Boise State will play at Oregon and attempt to break that 10-game losing streak to power conference opponents \u2014 the Broncos have lost three of those games by three points or fewer, but the average margin of defeat also is 17.0 points per game.<\/p>\n
Colorado State also gets Brigham Young at home, and Oregon State has a home date with Texas Tech. Washington State has three power conference opponents on its schedule, with Arizona at home and Washington and Kansas State on the road. San Diego State also plays at UCLA, and Utah State plays at Washington and Utah.<\/p>\n
Will the Pac-12 find some validation there?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe keep score, so we need to win,\u201d Hart said. \u201cWe need to put our best football teams in the College Football Playoff. We need to have multiple bids in the NCAA tournament and advance teams deep into the tournament, both men and women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to compete for championships across all of our sports. We know that will drive a lot of the reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 6:31 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pac-12 is pushing a narrative that it is a Top Five conference, and it certainly can make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-365741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}