SoCal_Pony wrote:a few things...
Utah has said their association with the PAC-12 did wonders for their recruitment of students and professors and overall academic improvement. For this reason, i.e. Academics, if there is no more poaching or relatively little additional poaching of the PAC, I could see the remaining schools staying together until the next great reset occurs with the ACC schools. That would potentially give SMU a ~decade of PAC membership.
San Diego St makes the most sense for PAC expansion as there are too many wealthy PAC alumni in So Cal. Plus a defensive measure against the B12.
In this scenario, I suspect SMU is ahead of Fresno St due purely to academics.
If another Texas school got a PAC invite, I would prefer Rice over Coogs. My bet is the decision makers at these PAC schools feel the same way.
Neither Fresno, Boise or UNLV are getting more than a casual look by the PAC and none of them will be added. Out of those three, only UNLV may come close to the academic standards of the PAC but their football program sucks. Early on, I thought the PAC would be well served adding Hawaii as football only with Gonzaga but I've not heard anything of the sort being discussed. SMU would be an aggressive, offensive move into Texas. If that happens then I think further expansion, either now or in five/six years, would be more in Texas along with Tulane. If UNLV were to get its act together athletically and improve its academics (like some on here have said about UTSA, UNLV, despite have R1 status and a medical school, isn't considered a very good school academically), then they could get a look in 2029/2030.
