The Pac-12 Conference is back, and this time it is a completely different animal. Two years after 10 schools departed and left Oregon State and Washington State behind, the rebuilt Pac-12 kicks off Sept. 5 with eight football members, six brand-new programs, a flex-week twist and real College Football Playoff stakes. Boise State enters as the betting favorite to win the league, but the schedule is loaded with early tests that will tell us everything. Here is the full state of the Pac-12 Conference heading into the 2026 season.
The Rebuilt Pac-12 Conference: Eight Teams, New Coaches and a Fresh Format
The new Pac-12 Conference is a Group of Six league in name and structure, but it projects like the best one in the country. ESPN's SP+ rates the eight-team league with the best average team rating of any Group of Six conference, and the schedule release backs that up: 12 non-conference games against ACC, Big 12, Big Ten or SEC opponents, with five of those in the first week alone. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State and Utah State all joined officially on July 1, giving the conference its first full season since the 2023 collapse.
The format is unlike anything else in college football. Every team plays four non-conference games to open the season, then a seven-game round-robin league slate from Week 5 through Week 12. The regular season ends with a Week 13 flex matchup — four predetermined home teams (Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State, Washington State) get paired with road opponents, and the league reserves the right to adjust the pairings a week out based on playoff and bowl positioning. Those flex games do not count in the standings. The Pac-12 Championship Game is Friday, Dec. 4, at the home of the higher seed.
Three programs break in first-year head coaches. JaMarcus Shephard, Alabama's former co-offensive coordinator, takes over at Oregon State after Trent Bray was fired midseason. Kirby Moore, Missouri's former offensive coordinator, replaces Jimmy Rogers at Washington State after Rogers bolted for Iowa State. Jim Mora, who went 9-3 at UConn last season, inherits a Colorado State program that fired Jay Norvell in October. That trio of new voices joins established names like Boise State's Spencer Danielson, who is 24-8 in three seasons, and San Diego State's Sean Lewis, coming off a nine-win year.
Big Pac-12 Matchups: The Non-Conference Slate Will Define the Season
Week 1 is a gauntlet. Boise State opens at No. 2 Oregon on CBS, a rematch of the 2024 season opener and the clearest measuring stick the rebuilt league will get all year. Fresno State plays at No. 14 USC on FOX on Friday night, Oregon State travels to No. 23 Houston on ESPN, and Washington State visits No. 17 Washington in the Apple Cup on NBC. Texas State opens at Texas, and Utah State plays at Washington — six of the eight Pac-12 teams open against ranked or Power Four opponents.
Week 2 brings more heavyweight tests: Oregon State hosts Texas Tech on Sept. 12, a 2025 College Football Playoff participant, at Reser Stadium on CBS. Boise State hosts Memphis, Washington State visits Kansas State, and San Diego State plays at UCLA. Week 3 features Colorado State hosting BYU and James Madison — another 2025 playoff team — visiting San Diego State. Two teams that played in last year's College Football Playoff will visit Pac-12 campuses this fall, and Boise State's home date with Memphis gives the Broncos a chance to build a playoff-worthy resume before conference play even starts.
Once league play begins Oct. 3, the round-robin guarantees the two best teams meet in the championship. The headliners: Boise State at Fresno State on Oct. 10, Washington State at Oregon State on Oct. 17, Boise State hosting Texas State on Halloween, and Oregon State at Boise State on Nov. 14. The projected Week 13 flex games are Boise State at Utah State, Texas State at Colorado State, San Diego State at Fresno State and Oregon State at Washington State — though the league can reshuffle those for playoff purposes.
Players to Watch Across the Pac-12 Conference
Boise State's Maddux Madsen is the most important player in the league. The Broncos return their starting quarterback and head coach for a third straight season, a continuity edge no one else in the Pac-12 can match, and Madsen has two potential 1,000-yard backs behind him in junior Dylan Riley and sophomore Sire Gaines. Edge rusher Jayden Virgin-Morgan anchors a defense that kept Boise in every game during a 9-5 2025. The Broncos reached the College Football Playoff in 2024 as the No. 3 seed, and the formula — elite running game, aggressive defense, stable QB play — is still intact.
Oregon State's quarterback room is the story in Corvallis. Maalik Murphy is the lone returning QB after 35 Beavers hit the transfer portal this offseason, and he has the strongest arm on the roster. Braden Atkinson, the 2026 Jerry Rice Award winner as the best freshman in FCS at Mercer, transferred in to push him, and Western Michigan transfer Brady Jones is in the mix too. New weapons arrived with Aaron Butler from Texas and Aeryn Hampton from Alabama, while AJ Newberry (Vanderbilt) takes over at running back and Dylan Layne (Idaho) anchors the linebacker room.
San Diego State quietly has one of the best coaches in the league — Sean Lewis beat Boise State last season and returns nine-win momentum. Texas State brings back the most productive quarterback in the conference's new footprint in G.J. Kinne's system, and Fresno State's Matt Entz won nine games in his first season. Washington State is the wild card under Kirby Moore, a first-time head coach with an offensive background who inherited a roster in flux after two coaching changes in 13 months.
Odds of Going All the Way: What the Market Says About the Pac-12 Race
Boise State is the clear Pac-12 Conference favorite. DraftKings opened the Broncos at +170 to win the league, with San Diego State next at +370, Texas State at +550 and Fresno State at +650. Washington State sits at +800, Utah State at +1100, Oregon State at +3000 and Colorado State at +4000. The betting market sees a two-tier league: Boise State and San Diego State at the top, and a jumbled middle where any of four or five teams could reach the title game.
The playoff picture makes this conference uniquely interesting. The highest-ranked Group of Six champion earns an automatic bid, and ESPN's FPI gives Boise State an 11 percent chance to reach the playoff — the best of any Group of Six team — with a 36.4 percent chance to win the Pac-12. BetMGM lists the Broncos at +675 to make the playoff, with their four closest challengers bunched between +1000 and +1150. Win totals reflect the confidence: Boise State's is set at 7.5 for a 12-game regular season.
Everything hinges on the non-conference gauntlet. Boise State's road games at Oregon and Memphis, Oregon State's dates with Houston and Texas Tech, and Washington State's trips to Washington and Kansas State will shape the playoff resume long before the Dec. 4 championship. The rebuilt Pac-12 Conference is back with real stakes, real talent and a schedule built to prove it belongs. The answers start Sept. 5.
Nathan Caldwell
Nathan Caldwell edits and writes multi-sport coverage for True Grit Sports, turning game notes, market movement, and key trends into readable context.