HARTFORD, Conn. — The wheels of collegiate conference realignment are spinning again, with basketball powerhouse Gonzaga set to join the newly configured Pac 12.
Though the possibility of UConn joining the Pac 12 as a football-only complement was explored last week, this will not happen. UConn sources, requesting anonymity, told The Hartford Courant the university doesn’t consider this the right fit at this time.
So UConn, for the moment, will remain independent in football, in a season in which it has shown significant competitive improvement, and a member of the Big East in basketball and most other sports. UConn’s long-held ambition is to join one of the power conferences. Talks with the Big 12 were paused last month.
Gonzaga is moving from the West Coast Conference, where its men’s basketball program has been dominant since the 1990s, to become the eighth Pac-12 member along with holdovers Washington State and Oregon State, the schools that remained when the rest of the original Pac 12 broke up in 2023, along with Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Utah State and Colorado State, all of whom defected from the Mountain West.
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Gonzaga will join the conference in sports beginning July 1, 2026. The school does not play football, dropping its program in 1941. In men’s basketball, the Zags have been a March Madness fixture, with several deep NCAA Tournament runs and two separate trips to the national title game (2017, '21).
Both the Pac 12 and Mountain West, which added Texas-El Paso (UTEP) on Tuesday, have seven football-playing members and need another to meet minimum standards for college football playoff eligibility. So this stage of realignment is not done.
UTEP, which shares geography and history with some Mountain West schools, is leaving Conference USA.
