My old roommate is ecstatic. Myself and another close Aggie are in thr wait and see mode. BW was good for Olympic sports with shorter travel times. But this may have been their only shot at FBS eventually so they probably had to take it if that's where they want to be.

I think the big west limits national recognition to a certain extent. I can see what you are saying but id image a lot of student athletes would enjoy a higher level of competition + the larger media coverage. I think playing teams across the west is kinda cool but Im also not a student athlete so I cant talk. While I have my own personal views on all this crazy movement of teams, I think we need to position ourselves in a competitive direction, and this does that long term imo.

I think the Big West is just Southern California now.

In the Mountain West official notice, there is the following line:

"With the move to Mountain West, UC Davis has committed to continuing to invest in its basketball program, which will parallel its new conference brethren."
https://themw.com/news/2024/12/10/mountain-west-welcomes-uc-davis/

So definitely an increase in basketball recruiting budgets.

Just when I thought I would never get to see the Aggies play in Hawai`i anymore and then this happens. Definitely good news from my personal perspective, but I'm a little wary of what it does to the overall program. I wonder how "commercial" it will make the coaches and players, driven by how much money they can make as opposed to just playing the games. Call me old fashioned.

Who else is excited to see how this affects our recruiting?

Another step away from the focus on student athletes and teacher coach?

This is unbelievable! How freakin exciting!!

I don't see why our basic athletic values of strong academics and high character needs to change at all. Stanford manages to do it and compete.

I do think we will need substantial NIL funds to be competitive in recruiting though. However, I don't think that Chancellor May and the Athletics Department made this move without considering that. My guess is that they have a good read on that already and that they expect that those funds will grow as we become more compeiitive at this higher level of competition.

Big West boards is absolutely pissed.

I think the feelings are mixed over on the Big West Boards. Some see the reasoning behind the Davis move and others don't think it's a wise decision. I think most of the folks commenting are just wondering about what the effect will be on the conference now and who might be targets for new membership.

Yes this is a stunning move. How Rocko kept this under wraps is incredibly impressive. I do have a couple of thoughts: I think it is clear that the AD and the chancellor have agreed that the football program needs to move up to the FBS level. There has been a lot of talk on this forum about the lack of attendance at games by both students and the community. Why? Because of the lack of interest in the competition. What California kid really cares about Eastern Washington or most other Big Sky teams? Few. Same with regular fans. Much more interesting would be say UNLV, Hawaii or Air Force. So very good move.
Next: what to do with Sac state?
I don’t think we or the MWC should just freeze them out. They are our immediate rivals. I also don’t think Rocko just blindsided them.but I think they did themselves no favors with their announcement (in fairness read Sac Bee) early on that they were going to join the PAC? When at the end their football program crashed. At this point their credibility is basically gone.
We are the only Program who could have any effect in getting sac into the MWC. I say we try.
Lastly, I really don’t think funding for the stadium upgrades will be that difficult. Funders and the wealthy like to do big stuff. This is big stuff. And we have the folks out there who can do it.
Happy day for Aggie Fans all over!

A fantastic write up! Totally agree :)

I don't like Sac but having them in the same conference is a net positive.

This is incredible news. I won’t be surprised if you will see Santa Barbara and Irvine move out.

I personally think this moves keep Jim Les longer term now. I HOPE it has an impact on recruiting. Think about what Les has gotten out of the players we have. Imagine if we can get 1-2 higher recruits.

This is a step in the right direction of putting Davis sports on the map!!

We aren’t going to be good for a few years but this will be good long term.

I agree. How long has it been since Sac State and UCD were in the same league aside from football?

What does this mean for broadcasts? No more espn+ right?

More oportinunites for corruption! Let’s have tax exempt NIL combines shall we? What could go wrong? The slippery slope of corruption because bending a rule here or there isn’t that big a deal, right?

well right now most MWC men’s hoops games are on CBS Sports Net which is harder to get than ESPN+ but a nice professional production value. I think other sports are streamed on a MWC app.

Personally I find Davis’ stuff on ESPN+ for both BSC football and BWC for other sports as more accessible and a better value, but there are pros to being on a real cable sports channel

He included the communications along w the information on the free tickets for students to the Playoff game. s/

Last year on a halftime TV interview, Chancellor May said they were working on something "big", but couldn't share it presently. "Big" could only mean a few things:

- join Pac 12
- join MWC
- expand UC Davis Health Stadium

https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/northern-illinois-football-only-offer-mountain-west

I was curious to compare the 2026 Mountain West NCAAB Massey ratings vs. the 2024 Big West Massey ratings. This is what I see:

New Mountain West
New Mexico 77
Nevada 70
Grand Canyon 97
UNLV 110
UTEP 118
Wyoming 126
UC Davis 158
Hawaii 162
San Jose St 213
Air Force 293

Current Big West
UC Irvine 46
UC San Diego 99
UC Riverside 145
UC Santa Barbara 150
UC Davis 158
CS Northridge 160
Hawaii 162
Cal Poly 217
CS Bakersfield 228
Long Beach State 248
CS Fullerton 249

Very interesting. If I did the math correctly, the new MWC has an average rating of 126.5 compered to the Big West at 169.3 despite UCI. That's a big difference, but consider two outliers: Taking Air Force out of the Mountain West and the average goes to 108.1 and taking UCI out of the Big West and the average rating goes to 192.1, almost double!

I wonder what changes are coming to the Big West now that Davis and Hawaii are out?

Initial thoughts:

• Basketball does get more competitive. UNLV, New Mexico, Nevada on an annual basis. Even the bottom tier is like mid tier of BW. We’ll need to lift our program to compete. This may indeed be a multiple bid league even with 2026 members
• Going to miss the Big West. Fun academic rivalries in Cali
• Nevada and SJSU will be drivable for most students and many alumni. Could make an argument this proximity tops anything we had in the BW. And UNLV isn’t too bad a drive for our so-Cal alumni.
• Will UNLV / AF leave MW? How stable is this league?
• I suspect this is a long term football move. Mixed feelings here tbh

I guess I didn’t realize how good Irvine is/was. I feel like that’s sitting the last 5-7 years. The BW had so much clarity and then all of the sudden, Irvine became a juggernaut.

I personally prefer to use median values to avoid skewed numbers.
The median ranking for the new Mountain West Conference is 122.
The current Big West's median ranking is 160.

On the other hand, I guess you would need to have outliers on the positive side, like UC Irvine, so that you'll decrease the chance of being a one-bid conference.

Hard to see any other California schools that are at the right level. Cal Baptist? Sac State? Or go for one of the Utah teams. Maybe they just stay a 9-team conference?