ESPN report: San Diego State gives Mountain West written notice its leaving the conference

Conference realignment has taken over quite a bit of the conversation around college sports over the last year or two. Now, the latest example of looks like it is set to take place with another athletic program out in California with the San Diego State Aztecs.

Per Pete Thamel at ESPN, SDSU gave the Mountain West a notice that they ‘intend to resign’ from the league. Within the written notice was also a request for an extension of one-month due to delays in other conferences.

Sources: San Diego State gave the Mountain West written notice this week that the school “intends to resign from the Mountain West Conference.” SDSU asked the Mountain West for a “one-month extension given unforeseen delays involving other collegiate athletic conferences beyond…

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) June 16, 2023

San Diego State joined the Mountain West in 1999. Before that, they had been members of Western Athletic Conference (WAC) since the late 70s.

Thamel further expounded upon the update out of San Diego in an article for ESPN. In a quote from one source in the piece, they said that the written notice wasn’t an official resignation.

“SDSU is exploring all of the options and asking all the questions,” that source said to Thamel. “The intention of the June 13 letter wasn’t that San Diego State is exiting.”

There are a lot of moving parts at play if this truly the direction that San Diego State is going.

First, there’s the issue of their potential exit fee from the Mountain West. If they are going to withdraw from the Mountain West, they need to make them aware of that by the end of the month. That would keep their exit fee at around $16.5 million. If they don’t give a years notice, so by June 30th, that cost jumps up to the ballpark of $34 million.

Secondly, the next question is where San Diego State could be going. In Thamel’s report, he notes that the Aztecs don’t seemingly have an offer from anyone in the Power Five. Considering their location, many have long connected them as a possible replacement for UCLA or USC in the Pac-12. On top of that, the wording of the potential extension could be in connection to the Pac-12’s unresolved TV negotiations.

The Aztecs have proven in several different aspects that they could be ready for a jump into the Power Five. Thamel pointed out as much in his article considering how San Diego State AD JD Wicker ‘has openly spoken about switching leagues’ and, additionally, that he told ESPN in March that their programs would be ‘ready to step into a power conference’.

Still, while this is more than noteworthy news from out west, it sounds like there are a lot of steps left to resolve before San Diego State officially goes anywhere.