The Pac-12 Conference is adding Texas State University to its membership beginning in 2026, the league announced Monday.

As the newest full member, Texas State gives the Pac-12 eight all-sports schools with football teams, the minimal requirement to remain in the Bowl Subdivision. Gonzaga does not have football but is also going to be a ninth all-sports member of the conference.

Oregon State and Washington State had been the lone schools in the Pac-12 since 2024, after 10 schools defected to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC ahead of the 2024-25 academic year. Now, the Bobcats will join OSU and WSU, as well as Boise State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Colorado State and Gonzaga as the seven additional schools in a “rebuilt” Pac-12.

Texas State’s application was unanimously approved by all eight current and future members of the conference.

Reports had been swirling around Texas State for months, and the Pac-12 formally invited the school to join the conference on Sunday. Texas State had a deadline to consider—the exit fee to leave the Sun Belt Conference doubles from $5 million to $10 million on July 1. This morning, the school’s board approved the financial transaction for the $5 million exit fee to the Sun Belt.

The public research university in San Marcos, about a 40-minute drive southwest of Austin, has over 40,000 students. The school touts that “is the only university to graduate both a U.S. President and a king.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson graduated in 1930. The king, however, is not a literal one. George Strait, the “King of Country Music,” graduated from Texas State in 1979.

In 2024-25, the Bobcats won conference titles in softball (regular season) and volleyball (tournament), as well as women’s indoor track and field and men’s outdoor track and field. It won the Vic Bubas Cup as the conference’s top performing athletic department in three of the last four years.

The school has made significant investments into its football program, which elevated to FBS in 2012. It signed a 15-year, $23 million naming rights deal with University Federal Credit Union for the Jim Wacker Field at UFCU Stadium, the 27,000-plus seat venue formerly known as Bobcat Stadium. The school also spent $37 million to renovate the Johnny and Nathali Weisman Football Performance Center, the training facilities connected to the stadium.

Led by head coach GJ Kinne, the Bobcats had bowl game wins in 2023 and 2024.

The addition of Texas State comes a week after the Pac-12 and Paramount agreed to a five-year media rights extension, making CBS the conference’s anchor media partner through 2031. That deal is an add-on of a “stopgap” media agreement with the CW, CBS Sports and ESPN for the 2025-26 academic year.