FBS adds North Dakota State, Sacramento State

The Mountain West will have a much different look (see below) for the 2026 season, including the addition of FCS behemoth North Dakota State for football only. Beginning in 2011, the Bison collected 10 national titles, including eight in a nine-season stretch. Among teams they defeated on the championship stage were James Madison, Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State, each of which elevated to the FBS. The Bison went 12-1 in 2025 with the lone defeat to Illinois State in the second round of the playoff.

Each of the coaches who led the Bison to titles left to take over an FBS program: Craig Bohl (Wyoming), Chris Klieman (Kansas State) and Matt Entz (Fresno State). Bohl and Klieman have since retired.

Sacramento State, which built up an NIL treasure chest in the hope of joining the new-look Pac-12, had its request to elevate to the FBS denied by the NCAA last spring. The school kept knocking on the door and was granted admittance and joins the MAC on a football-only basis.

The Hornets bring a resume to the MAC that includes a recent run of four straight seasons -- 2019-23 with 2020 cancelled due to the pandemic -- of making the playoff under Troy Taylor (2019 and 2021-22 as Big Sky champs) and Andy Thompson (2023). The former left to take over the top job at Stanford with the latter joining him as an assistant following the 2024 season. That stretch represented a refreshing change for a program that had all of four winning seasons in the previous 18.

Alonzo Carter leads the Hornets into the FBS after spending the past nine seasons working under Brent Brennan at Arizona and San Jose State, including as assistant head coach the past two seasons with the Wildcats. He took over for Brennan Marion, who guided the Hornets to a 7-5 mark in 2025 after serving as the offensive coordinator under Barry Odom at UNLV. Marion left in December to become the offensive coordinator at Colorado.

Neither team will have the opportunity to play for a conference championship and may not compete in a bowl until 2028. Such are the restrictions of a woefully outdated NCAA bylaw that mandates a two-year transition period during which reclassifying programs are ineligible for postseason play. North Dakota State petitioned the NCAA and a determination had yet to be made as of the date of this post. During a transition period, a team can still qualify for a bowl if there are not enough six-win teams to fill all bowl slots. That was the case with Delaware and Missouri State in their initial FBS seasons last year.

The addition of North Dakota State and Sacramento State bring FBS membership to 138. In addition to Delaware and Missouri State in 2025, other programs that recently joined the ranks were Kennesaw State in 2024 and Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State elevated in 2023.

MAC stretches west to Sacramento State

The MAC remains a 13-team league, though with a little change and West Coast membership. As Northern Illinois departs for the Mountain West, Sacramento State arrives from the FCS in a move that has certainly raised eyebrows, and not just because of an $18 million MAC entrance fee and $5 million reclassification price tag.

A California school in the MAC? At about 2,000 miles away, Ball State in Muncie, Ind. is the Hornets’ closest conference opponent. As such, the MAC has followed other conferences in becoming a coast-to-coast entity, from California to Massachusetts.

The MAC previously took on teams outside what has generally been a tight footprint dominated by Michigan and Ohio. Until this year, Northern Illinois was the westernmost school when it first joined the league in 1975 and then again for a second term in 1997. Marshall, which also became a MAC member for the second time in 1997, UCF (2002), Temple (2007) and UMass (2012) have all since come and gone with the Minutemen returning to the conference in 2025 following nine years of independence.

Only one Mountain West champ remains

With the departure of conference titan Boise State as well as Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State to the Pac-12, the Mountain West lost almost half of its membership from what was a 12-team conference a year ago. It also leaves San Jose State as the only school to have a won a MWC title, which it did in 2020. The new-look 10-team league will have North Dakota (FCS), UTEP (C-USA) and Northern Illinois (MAC) joining incumbents Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV and Wyoming.

As noted above, North Dakota State is the new big boy on campus, though at a cost of $12.5 million to the conference and $5 million to the NCAA for reclassifying. There is no reason to think North Dakota State will not have immediate success in the Mountain West especially given the teams that departed. Third-year coach Tim Polasek guided the Bison to a 26-3 mark and a national title (2024) in the program’s final two seasons at the FCS level.

As for the other newcomers, Northern Illinois was a MAC juggernaut in the 2010s with quarterbacks Chandler Harnish and Jordan Lynch leading the way. In seven years under former Huskies’ running back Thomas Hammock, NIU won a conference title in 2021, though went 35-47 overall. Hammock left DeKalb in February to be an offensive assistant with the Seattle Seahawks. Rob Harley, who joined Hammock at NIU in January as defensive coordinator, took over on an interim basis.

UTEP has been at or near the bottom of the FBS for much of the past two decades. In a 20-season span beginning in 2006, the Miners have had two winning years, both 7-6 and both concluding with bowl losses. In fact, UTEP has been to only six bowl games this century and, remarkably, the last bowl victory was in 1967!

Revitalized Pac-12 an eight-team conference

Oregon State and Washington State have company after two years of keeping the Pac-12 brand alive while in a schedule arrangement with the Mountain West. Five of those MWC teams join the Beavers and Cougars: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. Texas State arrives from the Sun Belt to make it an eight-team league.

Boise State is the king of the hill until proven otherwise. As such, the Pac-12 is an immediate player when it comes to representing the Group of Six in the College Football Playoff. Though 2025 was a disappointing five-loss campaign that opened with a disheartening 34-7 loss at USF and ended in similar fashion (38-10) against Washington in the LA Bowl, Spencer Danielson’s Broncos nonetheless won another Mountain West title. It was the Broncos’ third straight championship and fifth in a 10-year stretch.

Visit this page for more on Boise State and the new Pac-12.

Sun Belt and Conference USA changes

The Sun Belt lost Texas State to the Mountain West and remained a 14-team league with the addition of Louisiana Tech, which arrives from Conference USA. C-USA also lost UTEP to the Mountain West reducing its inventory to 10 teams for the 2026 season. Seven of the teams joined the conference since 2023.