Just when conference affiliations in college football seemed to stabilize, two conferences traditionally associated with the far west shuffled the deck once more.

Not to worry. Four full months span Penn State’s Blue-White Weekend and Week 0 of the college football season, which is plenty of time to memorize the new members of the Pac-12 and Mountain West Conference.

Not so long ago, it was easy to rattle off the teams in the Pac-12 if you could remember that two teams each were located in Arizona, Southern California, Northern California, Oregon and Washington and one each in Utah and Colorado.

Memorization of the current Pac-12 membership is a bit more challenging.

Compensating for the loss of 10 members to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, the reconstituted Pac-12 added five teams from the Mountain West which, in turn, welcomed three teams that expanded its continental reach to four time zones.

In the Pac-12, holdovers Oregon State and Washington State have been joined by Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State from the Mountain West and Texas State from the Sun Belt Conference.

Realignment has resulted in a net loss of two teams in the Mountain West where North Dakota State, Northern Illinois and UTEP have merged with Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San José State, UNLV and Wyoming.

The realignment of the two western conferences and their competitive formats matter because, of the 35 schools that appeared in College Football Playoff rankings last season, none are current members of the Pac-12 or Mountain West.

The Pac-12 has introduced a schedule consisting of a four-game non-conference slate, seven-game round-robin for league play and a home-and-home flex matchup among the league’s eight members to conclude the regular season.

The flex matchup will be considered a non-conference game that the Pac-12 can adjust based on the best interests of the league, including CFP considerations.

In the 10-team Mountain West, each team will play four home and four away conference games.

Meter’s running out

Lincoln Riley, Steve Sarkisian and Kalen DeBoer better hope that they’re not running on the same patience meter as Chip Kelly.

Failing to deliver an anticipated national championship on demand, Kelly was fired at LSU eight games into his fourth season.

Riley has completed four full seasons at USC without a conference championship or CFP berth.

In five seasons at Texas, Sarkisian is hanging his cowboy hat on two CFP semifinal losses.

Walking in the shadows of national championship coaches at Alabama, DeBoer has totaled as many losses in his first two seasons (eight) as Nick Saban accumulated in his last five, which included a national championship in 2020.

IU West?

No complaints will be heard out of Westwood if new UCLA head coach Bob Chesney duplicates the recent success of the man he succeeded at James Madison.

Hired to replace Curt Cignetti at JMU in 2024, Chesney led the Dukes to a 21-6 record in two seasons and a spot in the CFP last year.

Meanwhile, Cignetti was turning the college football world on its head at Indiana, securing two CFP berths and the 2025 national championship.

“From his detail-oriented approach to running a program, to his ability to connect, Bob impressed our search committee every step of the way,” said UCLA Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond, who described his new football coach as a leader, consensus builder and developer of young men.

As for a Cignetti-Chesney head-to-head matchup, UCLA and Indiana are not scheduled to meet in Big Ten regular-season play until 2028.

Beefed up spring finale

It has become common practice for NFL teams to schedule an opponent for scrimmages during summer camp.

Similarly, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders has expressed interest in transforming his program’s spring game into a practice session or scrimmage with another team.

“No one’s valuing spring anymore,” Sanders said. “You’ve got several major colleges not even having spring games. The only thing that will bring that back is we compete against another school.”

Nearly 28,000 free tickets were distributed for the Buffaloes’ intra-squad scrimmage that was held two weeks ago.

Vested interest

First-year Utah head coach Morgan Scalley has pledged a $2 million gift to the Utes football program.

Scalley, a former first-team all-conference safety at Utah, succeeds Kyle Whittingham after 18 seasons as an assistant on the Utes staff, including the last 10 years as defensive coordinator.

“My love for this place includes a vision of where we can go and what we can achieve, and it will require an increased effort from everyone who shares in that vision,” Scalley said.

Notable

In celebration of Indiana’s national championship, the university created a special interactive experience for fans by sending the football program’s 2025 CFP, Big Ten, Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl trophies on a statewide tour.

The competition for the starting quarterback position at Virginia includes Beau Pribula and Eli Holstein, who have now transferred twice.

Pribula is a former Nittany Lion who started 10 games for Missouri last season before opting out of the Gator Bowl against, ironically,

Virginia. Holstein began his collegiate career as a redshirt at Alabama and transferred to Pitt where he started 10 games in 2024 and four last season.

Quotable

“I understand people want to talk about long-term and process and all this other stuff. And I got it, like I’m good. There’s a process to everything you do. But the process I want to do is win right now, like today.”

— New Florida coach Jon Sumrall who inherits a 4-8 team

“Things don’t happen overnight. We’re making some first steps. There’s a ton of work to get the program back up to where everybody around here wants it to be.”

— New LSU head coach Lane Kiffin after the first day of spring practice

Jim Caltagirone, a former member of Penn State’s sports information department, comments on the national scene for Gameday. He can be reached at jimclion4ever@gmail.com