The Cougs and Beavs will play 6 games each against Mountain West opponents next year.
In what had been a largely expected move for a number of weeks, the Pac-2 and Mountain West Conference make it official: they’ve worked out a scheduling agreement for 2024.
We have reached a scheduling agreement with the @MountainWest. #GoCougs #GoBeavs pic.twitter.com/2V63lVFwWF
— WSU Office of the President (@WSU_Cougar_Pres) December 1, 2023
The Washington State Cougars and Oregon State Beavers won’t be eligible for the Mountain West title game next season but have still crucially filled out at least half of their football schedule. The Cougs do have the San Jose State Spartans and San Diego State Aztecs on their schedule for 2024 already, a WSU spokesperson confirmed these games are being treated separately from the agreement so won’t count towards the six games.
The Cougs and Beavs will pay $14 million to the Mountain West as part of the agreement, Yahoo!’s Ross Dellenger reported earlier this week any games at Mountain West schools will be covered by their current media rights agreement while WSU and OSU are still working on partners for their home games. If the two schools emerge from their lawsuit victorious, they would wholly own the Pac-12 Network, but there will be carriage and expense issues galore at the end of next summer.
The agreement with the Mountain West includes an option for 2025 as well. Exact opponents and dates are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Crucially, it appears Washington State and Oregon State avoided signing up for any future guarantee of membership in the Mountain West. While the highest likelihood is still some sort of an agreement of future membership with the MWC, whether the Pac-2 joins them or visa versa, the schools are keeping their options open.
Washington State’s 2024 football schedule currently stacks up like this with one game left to add: