Mountain West gets their tenth team…

Maroon Eagle

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May 24, 2006
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UC Davis joins in all sports in 2026 except football which will stay in the Big Sky…

 
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Dawgg

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Last year, the NCAA made some changes for teams moving from the FCS to FBS in football. They removed the 15,000 average attendance requirement (which would open the door for a team like UC Davis), but they bumped the application fee to make the FCS to FBS move from $5,000 to $5,000,000. Plus, there are now 42 more football scholarship slots in FBS than in FCS (plus another 30-40 on the women’s side to satisfy Title IX).

I’m thinking that was a big deterrent for UC Davis (and any other current FCS school) to bring football over without a real guarantee of recouping that with TV money. Outside of somebody like NDSU or a private school in the FCS with a big money alumni base, I think we may have seen the last round of FCS to FBS transitions for a while.
 
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Maroon Eagle

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Did the PAC-2 ever get their 8th football member or are they still at 7 for football?

Not yet. They’re getting feedback on money value after their successful basketball swing for Gonzaga.

The rumor mill is that they’ll get their 8th sometime this Spring.

UC Davis has an endowment of over $2b, which would put them 5th in SEC (behind UT, TAMU, Vandy and UF)

Yes. The Aggies are a low-key school that could fund a football program.

Nope. They're still at 7. I believe Sacramento State is lobbying pretty hard to get that final bid.

Sacramento State has gotten some attention because they’ve made noises about going to the PAC or MW but their endowment doesn’t approach what Cal Davis has.

The PAC will likely look at Memphis, a Texas school, or maybe even Tulane or UConn.
 

Dawgg

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Sacramento State has gotten some attention because they’ve made noises about going to the PAC or MW but their endowment doesn’t approach what Cal Davis has.

The PAC will likely look at Memphis, a Texas school, or maybe even Tulane or UConn.
I can’t imagine the Pac is an attractive option to any of the AAC teams. They’re currently getting about $7 million per year from the AAC media deal. I can’t imagine the next Pac media deal from The CW or Warner Discovery or whatever is going to be more than that. Without their autonomous status, I don’t see the benefit of moving from the AAC to Pac, especially for an AAC team in the middle of the Central or Eastern time zone. Now, I think any of the Conference USA and maybe Sun Belt schools would love the opportunity to jump. New Mexico State, Sam Houston State, and Texas State might be good options. That being said, I’ve been wrong about all the weird moves that have been made in this saga.
 
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