Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
OREM — Conference realignment could soon be coming to the heart of Utah County.
The Big West Conference will reportedly vote Friday whether to extend an invitation to Utah Valley to join the league in the 2026 season, according to Action Network's Brett McMurphy.
The invitation, which will also discuss fellow Western Athletic Conference rival California Baptist, will be for 2026, according to Action Network. Those two schools would presumably replace Hawaii and UC Davis, who are leaving the Big West for the Mountain West beginning July 1, 2026.
Big West officials have recently visited both campuses, including as recently as two weeks ago in Orem, multiple sources told KSL.com. The conference was founded 55 years ago and currently fields 19 sports — nine men's sports and 10 women's sports.
Headquartered in Irvine, California, the league is based primarily in Southern California, with eight of the nine non-departing teams roughly 300 miles apart between San Luis Obispo and San Diego.
Big West will vote Friday to extend an official invitation to Cal Baptist & Utah Valley in 2026, sources said. Big West officials recently visited both campuses. Big West adding Cal Baptist & Utah Valley to replacing departing members Hawaii & UC Davis to Mountain West
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) February 24, 2025
Utah Valley isn't the first school from the Beehive State to be attached to the Big West. The conference rebranded from the Pacific Coast Athletic Association in 1988, when it expanded to include Utah State, UNLV, Nevada and New Mexico State, among others. When the conference stopped sponsoring football in 2001, Utah State began searching for a new home and found it in all sports in the WAC in 2005.
The Aggies then moved to the Mountain West for the 2013-14 season, and will join the newly assembled Pac-12 in 2026.
Utah Valley, which was founded as the Central Utah Vocational School in 1941 and moved to NCAA Division I in 2003, has also had a somewhat chaotic run in Division I athletics. The Wolverines joined the Great West Conference — which ceased operations in 2013 — in 2008 and won the league's Commissioner's Cup each year until they joined the WAC in 2013.
Utah Valley has also been an affiliate member of the Big 12 in wrestling since the 2015-16 season.
The WAC will be down to seven members in 2026 following the departures of Grand Canyon to the Mountain West and Seattle U. to the West Coast Conference. If CBU and Utah Valley join the Big West on the same timetable, it will drop the conference to just five members: Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Tarleton State, UT Arlington and Utah Tech.
