Exclusive: Commissioner Gloria Nevarez on the Mountain West and College Football’s Future
- Jeff Bugher
- 22 hours ago
- 4 min read
The Mountain West Conference has been reshaped over the last year. Commissioner Gloria Nevarez believes her conference is in a unique position as the shifting landscape of college athletics continues to reshape the West.
“This year is going to be really special,” Nevarez said. “We're in the unique position of being the only FBS league in the Western region and I think we are looking at another championship game that might determine one of the automatic qualifier spots and to the college football playoffs.”
The Mountain West has endured its share of realignment rumors and changes including the departures of Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State to the Pac 12, but Nevarez points to the league’s stability. When asked if she was surprised by the recent departures, she said the conference was prepared.
“I certainly knew it was looming on the horizon. The chatter had been in and around the league,” she said. “What I was really enthused by was how quickly our members linked arms and stayed together. We moved within weeks and months to solidify the core members, to add new institutions and to commit to a grant of rights through 2032. And that was a testament to the ADs and the presidents staying together and making the Mountain West.”
Was there any possibility of a merger or partnership with the Pac-12? Nevarez declined to go into detail, citing ongoing litigation, but pointed to public records for reference.
Expansion remains a hot topic, particularly with ambitious FCS programs such as North Dakota State, Tarleton State… often rumored as candidates. Nevarez acknowledged that while there is no shortage of strong programs, the hurdles are significant.
“There are a lot of amazing FCS programs that we would ordinarily be very interested in,” she explained. “There's a two-year waiting period, there's a $5 million fee that needs to be paid, and we just strategically at this time didn't want to take the risk that those bylaws might change, might get more stringent, or the pathway to FBS might close before those schools had an opportunity to join us. So we did not consider FCS this time around—not for lack of potentially great schools.”
For now, the league is holding steady. “Never say never,” Nevarez said. “We're just on pause for now. We're going to get through a media rights [negotiation], but we are constantly looking at membership.”
One of the pressing issues is a new television/media revenue deal, particularly as flagship programs like Boise State and Fresno State will no longer be in the picture next year. Nevarez said she expects stability, not upheaval.
“Not [a] big shake-up,” she said. “I think you're going to see relatively similar value in deals. Boise State is certainly a value proposition. They were actually called out by name in our original media contracts because of what they built and their media value. But we anticipate re-signing all of our legacy partners as well as adding some new ones.”
The commissioner also weighed in on ongoing frustrations with tampering, the transfer portal, and NIL. “We’ve always struggled with that,” Nevarez admitted. “And now, with revenue sharing and NIL, it seems to be even more so, and the transfer portal, it seems more rampant, prevalent. I don't serve on the implementation committee, but I do know that's something that they and the NCAA have been focused on. So it's something we have to get our arms around.”
Still, she said accountability doesn’t rest solely with the NCAA. “I think there is some [responsibility] on us, on the NCAA to bring accountability, but also to the institutions and the coaches in conducting business in an ethical manner. We can't let them off the hook just because it's in a competitive environment. Breaking the rules is breaking the rules.”
Looking at the future, Nevarez pointed to the House settlement and its potential to shape what’s ahead. “I think it's on the right track. There's certainly a lot that still needs to be hammered out, a lot of unintended consequences. But if it effectively works in our environment and stabilizes, I think we have a chance to continue to build in college athletics as we know it today. If not, I think when media contracts are up again in the early 2030s, we're going to see another major shift.”
And while transfer departures have always been a challenge for the Mountain West, Nevarez said the league has proven its ability to reload. “Even before the transfer portal, we would find talent, develop it, and it would be lured away, but we always rebuild. While it's happening at a higher cadence, true coaches don't like it, but also I think roster limits is something we hadn’t seen before. Hopefully, you’ll see a lot of our rosters did really well - we have a lot of players on the Power Four beats.”
As for rivalry trophies, like the Bridger’s Battle between Wyoming and Utah State, Nevarez said regional matchups should continue regardless of realignment. “We have so many interesting rivalry trophies among the league and just because we're not meeting in conference together doesn't mean these rivalries can't continue and schedule each other,” she said. “Flying over the Rockies for every single game is unsustainable.”
There you have it! Straight from Commissioner Gloria Nevarez.
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