The Pac-12 Conference seemingly completed its rebuild Monday as the conference announced Texas State University as its newest member after the school’s Board of Regents approved the move in a special session Monday morning.

TXST joins the conference as the ninth member, and more crucially, the eighth football program. With eight football programs in place (Gonzaga does not have football), the conference can now compete among the strongest conferences at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

The Bobcats are an intriguing addition with high upside for the Pac-12 as a school that has seen football attendance rise by 25% over the past year and has invested $149 million in athletics since 2022. The school also recently completed the $37 million Johnny and Nathali Weisman Football Performance Center, with the university aiming to make more improvements to facilities in the coming years.

TXST expands the conference’s market to one of the biggest football states in the country as Texas routinely draws tens of thousands of fans into NFL stadiums for high school championships and produces a large amount of professional talent. A 2024 study found that Texas had the most players in the NFL at 211, 60 more than the next closest state.

For the Pac-12, it was likely key to expand beyond the Pacific Coast in search of a final member, hopefully to find a school that could expand its market and help to reach a new region of fans. Many of the rumored schools fit that bill.

Memphis and Tulane of the American Athletic Conference were commonly floated as targets, as both schools seemed in limbo with their status with the AAC. Memphis specifically had reportedly been prioritized and targeted by the Pac-12, but the Tigers found themselves distant from an agreement given a lack of a media deal at the time.

With Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State also choosing to leave the Mountain West Conference in favor of the Pac-12, the MWC also seemed like a prime location for emerging candidates. The Pac-12 reportedly showed interest in both UNLV and Air Force, two logical choices regionally and from a competitive standpoint, but both teams reaffirmed their commitment to the MWC, as did Memphis and Tulane to the AAC.

None of those primary options offered a market quite like Texas though, making the emergence of TXST as a legitimate option an intriguing proposition. With TXST turning down a verbal offer from the MWC, a conference suddenly on its heels trying to replace five teams, the quickly rebuilding Pac-12 was the next logical choice for the Bobcats. TXST was growing out of a Sun Belt Conference that has seen a rotation of solid conference champions, but consistently operates toward the bottom tier of the FBS.

With back-to-back bowl wins and being crowned as the top all-around athletics program three of the past four seasons in the Sun Belt, the Pac-12 now presents a step-up in competition for TXST and a chance to showcase its abilities more prominently on the national stage.

With interests aligned, the Pac-12-TXST pairing made sense, but in the world of competitive conference realignment, the immediate question becomes: What’s next?

Going from two teams to nine teams puts the Pac-12 back in the upper-half of collegiate conferences, simply given the basketball and football success of the new members and that the majority of them came from arguably the top Group of 5 conference in the Mountain West. The new Pac-12 is comparable to that of the AAC and MWC, but is yet to be seen if it can keep up with the likes of the Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences, especially when it is competing with about half their membership size.

The Pac-12 is left with two options: continue to expand to compete immediately with the Power 4 conferences or stand pat and evaluate the conference’s first season with its new members. While bringing back the Power 5 and competing at the top of college athletics is a great goal, it is unrealistic at the moment and only causes more confusion about the long-term future of the conference.

All things considered, the TXST addition strengthens the conference and was the best available option, and likely the only one for awhile given the conference’s struggles with candidates elsewhere. The Bobcats do not have the same resume as a Memphis or UNLV in terms of established athletic success and level of competition, but they are arguably the candidate with more potential and bring a market that is more significant than the other options. Plus, Texas still holds reasonable proximity to the Pacific Coast.

The conference now has a media deal in place, something that could change their prospects with potential new members in the future, but is limited and the conference is continuing to work to build out their media package and portfolio. The CBS deal only requires a minimum of three football games and three men’s basketball games to be aired on the main CBS network and Paramount+. While an unannounced number of those games will make their way to the CBS Sports Network, the deal still fails to incorporate a variety of other sports and offers little security in terms of big-name games that will actually air.

To expand its media presence and weigh options further, the conference’s best path forward is to stick with its nine current members for the first two seasons starting with the 2026-27 season. The further the Pac-12 expands before its first season, the more complicated media deals become and the less clarity there is on projections for the conference’s success.

With Gonzaga adjusting from West Coast Conference domination, TXST stepping up from the Sun Belt and the ex-MWC teams finding new rivalries, the Pac-12 needs time to settle and a chance to evaluate its competition. Nine teams may not be the ideal number, but the last thing the conference needs is a desperate search for another member who may be out of the conference’s expected competitive level.

That is why the conference stayed away from schools like Sacramento State, who operate at the FCS level and lack the infrastructure or direction going forward to truly stand out as a candidate.

Building to the size of larger conferences, anywhere from 12 to 18 schools, could bring the Pac-12 back to the top of the college landscape, but there is no guarantee that is even attainable in the current environment as the biggest conferences grow bigger and near monopoly. There is too much at stake for a Pac-12 that still needs to replenish its lost resources and must avoid a mistake that could cause an early breakdown of all the progress it has made.