In an interesting Friday afternoon storyline, the Mountain West Conference is reportedly exploring a new football-only addition to its ranks.
That team is the Nothern Illinois Huskies, who ActionNetworkHQ’s Brett McMurphy mentioned as a candidate to join league membership as early as 2026.
“Northern Illinois’ board on Tuesday expected to accept an offer to join Mountain West as a football-only member in 2026,” McMurphy wrote on X. “The addition of MAC’s most successful program gives MW 9 football schools, stretching 4 time zones. NIU is expected to receive substantially more revenue in MW than in MAC. NIU is considering several options for where its non-football sports will be played. Adding NIU in football plus Grand Canyon & UC Davis as non-football members are final pieces of MW’s expansion.”
Landing Northern Illinois would provide the Mountain West with another recognizable football brand, as the Huskies have had pockets of terrific success over the years. NIU has played in eight MAC Championships since 2010 and has won five of them, most recently in 2021.
Jordan Lynch, one of the most well-known Huskies in recent memory, was named a first-team All-American in 2013 and was a back-to-back MAC MVP in 2012 and 2013. He led NIU to the 2013 Orange Bowl after finishing the season with a 12-0 record and ranked 16th nationally.
Most recently, NIU made waves across college football when they went to South Bend and upset fifth-ranked Notre Dame 16-14 in the second week of the season. The Irish haven’t lost another game since then, and will face Penn State in the CFP semifinals next week.
Back on December 10th, the Mountain West added UC Davis as an all-sports member, with the exception of football. The partnership will come into effect in 2026, with the Aggies joining the likes of Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP, Wyoming, and Grand Canyon. The two schools that are affiliated in all sports but football are UC Davis and Grand Canyon.
While nothing has been officially announced from the league yet, McMurphy noted that NIU’s Board of Trustees scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, January 7th, to “review and endorse Membership Fee for Northern Illinois University to Join the Mountain West Conference.”
The addition is somewhat of a change from the previous two additions, UC Davis and Cand Canyon, as the pair of teams are set to join the league in every sport outside of football. NIU, however, will have to embark on the journey of figuring out where every scholarship sport other than football will reside in the near future.
