In September, there were rumblings of five programs leaving the Mountain West Conference for good. And on June 1, it’s confirmed that Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State have placed their formal exit notice. And just like that, out went with it, some of league’s storied rivalries and traditions. Collectively, the realignment will owe MWC a $90M total from the schools, but the PAC-12 raid is far from done. They still need one more program in a full-member capacity.

Names like Memphis, Tulane, and USF of the American Athletic Conference made the rounds. But for their commissioner Tim Pernetti, there’s no need to press the panic button just yet.

Only a year into his tenure, Pernetti is already getting his hands busy. When he joined Jon Gruden’s show on Wednesday, Gruden went right at him saying, “The champion of your conference was the SMU Mustangs, it was the Cincinnati Bearcats, Central Florida won it back-to-back, Houston won the freaking thing. Now they’re all gone! They just pick up and leave your conference. And then what do you do to replace those teams and remain competitive with everybody else?”

Talking about the chaos that would creep into the conference through the Pac-12’s expansion, Pernetti said, “We dealt with it in September. Pac-12 announced that they were expanding. They scooped up a big jump of schools out of the Mountain West, and then suddenly Memphis and Tulane, and USF were being discussed as potential members, and it’s challenging.

“But I think one of two things happens– As a commissioner, you either go into sales mode and talk about why you’re better than them and you get into negative recruiting and all that stuff. Or you just calmly get into a mode where you advise your schools.”

Armed with a media-savvy background from his ABC Sports days as a programming executive, Tim Pernetti leaned into strategy. “What I calmly said to our schools is take the meetings, hear the pitch, bring us the information. We’ll surround you with experts to help you determine what’s actually factual and what to ask questions about.” Memphis, Tulane, and USF stayed because Pernetti wasn’t just talking about survival. He was talking about building something sustainable — a brand.

“This brand is a baby; it’s still in its infancy,” Tim Pernetti told Adam Breneman on his Next Up podcast back in February. “This conference has been around for 14 years… This is a college conference: Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 Conference, Southeastern Conference. Maybe we should think about how to shape this around something that is meaningful and has broad-based appeal.”

And he meant creating a national identity. Tulane’s football success helped. So did the AAC’s resilience after losing Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF to the Big 12 in 2023. SMU also bolted for the ACC in September that year. But instead of panicking, the conference added six new programs from Conference USA and moved forward. But with the Pac-12’s fresh raid of Mountain West, realignment’s second wave is here.

AAC is safe from the Pac-12’s $90 million blow to the Mountain West

After losing 10 of its 12 members, the Pac-12’s remaining Oregon State and Washington State made an agreement with MWC in December 2023. It was to schedule a partnership for the 2024 football season, including a 2025 option. But last September, MWC declined the renewal of the scheduling agreement for 2025. Just a week later, four of the schools, excluding Utah State, agreed to join the Pac-12. Utah State joined later that month.

Now, each school bears an $18 million exit price tag that they would owe their former conference. Per MWC’s handbook, the exit fee is “an amount equal three times the average per-member conference distribution payment for the preceding year,” which is projected around $6 million per school.

So, the Mountain West was already in mediation gridlock, with these schools jamming board votes for eight months. Now that the $90 million fee is locked in, decisions are moving. But not towards the AAC. That’s because Tim Pernetti has made one thing clear– The conference isn’t desperate. It’s selective, it’s strategic, and it’s still standing tall with 14 members: Army, Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Memphis, Navy, North Texas, Rice, South Florida, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, and UTSA.

While others scramble, Tim Pernetti is out there with a broad-minded vision – selling stability. And in college football, sometimes that’s the strongest pitch of all.