For a while now, it’s felt like a matter of when, not if, SMU would join the Pac-12. The same has been said about San Diego State, SMU’s West Coast counterpart as a top-tier, Group of Five expansion candidate.
The difference between the two is that the Aztecs might be making their move.
According to ESPN, San Diego State president Adela de la Torre wrote a letter to the Mountain West Conference on Tuesday saying it intended to resign from the conference.
Cut and dry, right? Not quite.
San Diego State, as explained by columnist John Canzano, has a June 30 deadline to officially inform the Mountain West Conference it’s leaving if it wanted to play in another conference in 2024. Otherwise, the exit fee would double from $16.5 million to $33 million.
San Diego State, according to ESPN, asked for a monthlong extension to that deadline in its withdrawal letter to the MWC, which the conference later told the MWC wasn’t its official notice of resignation.
San Diego State doesn’t have an invite to the Pac-12 in waiting, according to multiple reports, but ESPN reported if the Pac-12 doesn’t have a new media rights deal by June 30 – which has been looked at as the first step before expansion – then San Diego State would explore all options. Besides, the Pac-12 isn’t the only conference looking to potentially expand.
“We’re going to consider all options,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark recently said. “As I said before, we do see the upside in basketball moving forward for all the right reasons. We think it’s undervalued and there’s a chance for us to double down as the No. 1 basketball conference in America.
“We have a plan, and as I said all along we have an appetite to be a national conference in our makeup from coast to coast.”
There’s still a lot to figure out, but perhaps San Diego State’s unofficial resignation notice has provided some semblance of a timeline for the next realignment domino, which ultimately would affect SMU.
When SMU might receive an invite from the Pac-12, or any Power Five conference, has been an elusive concept. Let’s go through the timeline:
In about two weeks, the college football world will celebrate the first anniversary of USC and UCLA’s bombshell – and leak-proof – move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. That once again reignited realignment conversation. SMU talked with representatives from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 and the Pac-12 shortly after, sparking internal optimism that this would finally be SMU’s time to make the jump.
That optimism increased when Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff visited SMU campus on Feb. 8. Multiple people familiar with the situation told The Dallas Morning News that it was more of a due diligence trip than a coronation.
Since then, it’s been status quo. SMU’s contingent has remained confident, but has remained waiting. San Diego State hasn’t received an invite from the Pac-12 and neither has SMU.
There’s been a reason for it.
Despite reports about the possibility for nearly a year, none of the remaining 10 Pac-12 schools have jumped ship for the Big 12. The schools put out a statement of unity on Feb. 13, and even though they didn’t live up to their pledge of “consummating [a] successful media rights deal in the very near future,” they have stuck together. It’s allowed Kliavkoff and the Pac-12 to take their time in hopes of securing a new media rights deal.
The Pac-12, according to Canzano, isn’t feeling any added pressure to expand in light of San Diego State’s letter to the MWC. Which means San Diego State’s June 30 deadline – or potentially a month extension to the deadline – isn’t necessarily going to spark the first actual conference switch since USC and UCLA announced their intention to join the Big Ten nearly a year ago.
Realignment can happen without notice, as that – along with Texas and Oklahoma’s switch to the Southeastern Conference – showed. Or it can happen at a glacial pace, as we’re seeing now.
Everyone, including SMU, is waiting for when the next move will happen. San Diego State’s letter could mark a potential timeline, or it could be another footnote in a yearlong waiting game.
On Twitter: @JoeJHoyt
