LARAMIE — Four Mountain West programs Thursday announced intentions to join the rebuilding Pac-12 Conference before the 2026 season.

One of those is Colorado State, Wyoming’s Border War rival.

You can imagine how that is sitting with the locals. Not helping matters is the lackluster 0-2 start to the football season.

San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State are also bolting, leaving the league, for now, with just eight member institutions: Air Force, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah State, UNLV, San Jose State and the Cowboys.

What does it all mean?

Your guess is as good as mine. UW’s athletic department is silent. Other leaders around the conference are throwing out cookie-cutter statements, saying they will do what’s best for their university moving forward.

Will the Mountain West add any teams? Is anyone else jumping ship? Will the longest rivalry west of the Mississippi continue after next season? Is Tom Burman attempting to get the Pokes in a new league?

Right now, there are more questions than answers. Still, Wyoming fans sounded off on the world wide web bright and early this morning when the news officially broke:

John Gunn Why don’t we just add the pac 12 to the mountain west?

Jeff White The MWC tv deal expires soon and the PAC 12 will have a better one. Additionally, I doubt this over. UNLV and New Mexico are likely next because of their TV markets.

Travis WebB It’s not disloyalty, it’s smart

Bryce Marston Pac-12 Lite will dissolve in less than a decade, once all their saved up TV revenue from when that conference was legitimate disappears. People in LA, San Fran, Seattle, etc. TV markets aren’t going to care about the sheep vs Beavers when they can watch UCLA/USC/Washington/Oregon/etc. play Michigan/Ohio State/etc.

Darren Thompson IOW, Burman on a beach in the Caribbean and cannot be reached

Jon Michael Ernster So much for the Mountain West teams staying strong together. Money talks though, can’t blame them. MW still gets buy outs and the Pac buyouts – should have negotiated it higher knowing this was going to happen anyway. Oregon State and Washington State needed a temporary lifeline and had no leverage. This is why other conferences are successful, because their leadership are savages, whereas we’re stuck in the corner kicking rocks always being reactionary instead of being proactive.

Michael Swann Hopefully they are on the phone trying to negotiate a better deal!! Strike first, strike fast no mercy sir!

Travis WebB This is what happens by settling for 6-6 seasons and having a coach for 10yrs and not winning a conference championship

Todd Ayers I remember when we left the WAC people acted like there was no tomorrow. Wyoming will be playing division I (FBS) football next year. New rivalries will be made. Life will go on. That’s college football today. Expect constant change.

Rich Arner Why not invite Wyoming to the PAC 12? Why can’t Wyoming get an invite. Our fan base is more loyal than half those teams!

Garet Fowler As long as we don’t go FCS I don’t care what happens.

Mark Reid BSU, Fresno State and SDSU certainly make sense in the Pac 12. Never did think of them as true intermountain west teams. CSU on the other hand is showing its true colors and any sense of loyalty to the region by deserting to the left coast. Hope they get waxed.

Chris Krassin It’s the end of college sport as we know it. Wyoming and the rest of the schools will likely end up in the FCS division or some of the lucky ones will go to other conferences such as Air Force. So sad I’ve already stopped watching college sports other than Wyoming and that will most likely be the end of this as well.

Miles Williams CSU has a hard time winning games in the MWC….in every sport…

Joe Hatley Wyoming needs to make these 3 changes: 1. Put a Dome on the stadium, (It will make a world of difference for recruiting, future games and fan attendance in November!) 2. Reach out to the Big 12, far better conference and travel is realistic 3. Hire a new AD that can be accountable and has some influence.

Shea Foster You guys can make fun of CSU but they are about to have a better TV deal than Wyoming and the leftovers. The lack of winning in revenue sports is catching up to Burman now.

Celyn Rogers They’re about to get their butts kicked for years to come they can’t even compete in the MW currently in FB and BB which are the only sports that truly matter

Bryan Stevens This is far from over. The number of schools invited shines a light on the 2PAC wishing that the ACC will implode and Cal and Stanford will come back to them. In reality they’re going to end up inviting an additional 5 MW schools to get to the magic number of 9 schools required to dissolve the MW and avoid the hundreds of millions of dollars in buyout fees.

Trey Blough Been saying it since all the conference realignment started happening that if the Mountain West gets poached away and falls, Wyoming will be in the Big Sky

Kevin Bommer This has been a long time coming. Not surprised about Boise State OR SDSU, especially BSU since they’ve never been happy in the conference. CSU will do great at sucking in a new conference, but I hope there is a commitment to keep The Border War alive. There are some competitive football schools that could be invited into the MWC. Hopefully, there has already been some work done ahead of time in anticipation of this possibility.

Charlie Cordova It’s a lateral move that really doesn’t make sense. It’s not like they attract more money and prestige with the pac 12 name without all the pac 12 programs.

David Coleman Wyoming’s major problem isn’t the team or the university or facilities, it’s the small media market.

Jason Ferguson RIP Mountain West. I think it’s high time Wyoming consider moving down to FCS in football. Join the Big Sky or Missouri Valley Conference. The writing is on the wall. On a side note, the MWC throws the PAC-12 a lifeline and this is how they are repaid?

Chase Appleby Move to FCS? Tell me how that even makes sense after the past 8 years? Folks.. Mtn West Championship Game 2 Power 5 wins 6 bowl games 5 winning seasons Take a breath Wyoming will be fine.

Andrew Bercich So we don’t have to deal with Boise fans anymore and we get to keep UNLV… sold!

Joe Vincent So…. I got LIT UP last year for suggesting maybe wyoming was better suited for the FCS. Anyone still want to make an argument? We have no wins. No talent. And no conference after this year. We just got clowned by a mediocre FCS school. To think we are too good to “move down” might be delusional at this point… just throwing it out there for discussion.

Scott Addison money talks, MWC is going the way of the WAC, off into the sunset, Wyoming should beg the Big Sky and Missouri Valley Conference to accept them

Linda Siebert Beidleman I have bled Brown and Gold for over 60 years, and have watched the Pokes get left behind and leave others behind. We have always adjusted and been a leader and competed at a high level. Let things shake out!!! And stop with the idea of stepping down a level!!!

Randy Tucker A sad departure, especially CSU…no one beats the sheep like the Cowboys…The MWC is still a viable conference but won’t generate the big bucks that is driving all this insanity…in the end will USC and Washington generate enough $$ with football to offset the cost of travel for the non-revenue sports? USC has 35+ scholarship sports….ridiculous

Chris Krassin Beg lower level FCS Division conference to take us? Sorry but this is not something a proud school should ever do.

Nick Poncelow Big Sky looks like a pretty fun conference, also easier and cheaper travel for away games. We could actually compete with the top of the FCS, sometimes.

Matthew P Pacheco Not sure this is the death knell for the MWC and Wyo that people are making it out to be. Boise and SDSU have had one foot out the door for over a decade. Everyone knew it was going to happen at some point in the near future. That reality was probably one of the barriers to negotiating a new TV contract. Finding replacements for them has probably been planned long in advance. CSU isn’t really a loss for anyone other than Wyoming and maybe AF. The CO front range is not much of a college sports market, and the people who are into CFB are mostly transplants who follow their hometown schools. Fresno is probably the only real loss for the conference as a whole. They’ve been competitive for a long time and have slowly built some cred. But they aren’t a tent-pole program, and they aren’t in a major TV market. They weren’t going to bring in a ton of extra TV money for the whole conference. The remaining members of the MWC come away from this with $13M each. Likely more in their pockets than keeping Boise and SDSU over the next 5 years (which wasn’t going to happen anyway). UNLV has the potential to be a real powerhouse in the NIL era, and could be the tent-pole program for the MWC that Boise always thought they were. The MWC can add NMST and UTEP, or some of the regional FCS powers can move up to FBS. The TV deal isn’t going to be great, but it will probably be about the same deal they would have gotten (since everyone knew Boise and SDSU were gone soon regardless) It will be enough for all the schools to continue on at the same level of funding they have been.

Rex Wimmer I’m bummed but not surprised… Hoping the MWC picks up NMSU, UTEP, NDSU, and SDSU. From there further expansion is probably needed.

Paul Lang Remember Wyoming left 3 conferences before the MW. RMAC,MSC and WAC

– University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players