What a Pac-12 and Mountain West conference merger would look like
Conference expansion rumors have led to speculation, jabs at other conferences, and just downright chaos in the college football scene.
There appears to be a couple realistic routes that the Pac-12, who is at the center of all of the expansion talks, can actually take. For starters, and this is what most people like ESPN's Paul Finebaum believe the conference will do; expand. Programs such as San Diego State, SMU, Tulane, and UNLV are there for the taking in promising markets and while they don't replace what the conference lost in USC and UCLA they are adequate replacements.
The other route isn't really appealing to certain programs and the Pac-12 itself, which would be the conference losing the four corner schools and Oregon and Washington, forcing the remaining programs to merge with the Mountain West. Something that CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd speculated recently,.
The remaining programs in the Pac-12 of course being Stanford (if the Big Ten doesn't add them) Cal (same as Stanford), Oregon State, and Washington State. This would likely forge a new conference, "Mountain Pac" or "Pac Mountain", likely neither of those names. However in all seriousness, it would be the strongest Group of 5 conference out there, but would be quite disappointing for the "former" Pac-12 schools to lose their Power 5 status.
The Mountain West currently has 12 football members split up into two divisions, so based on Dodd's prediction let's take a look at how adding the four Pac-12 programs would change them.
North (Formerly Mountain)
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South (Formerly West)
Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
