UC Davis in 2026 will join the Mountain West Conference in several sports, including basketball but not football, it announced Tuesday.
The Aggies will continue to play football in the Football Championship Subdivision as an affiliate member of the Big Sky.
“Adding UC Davis further strengthens the trajectory of the Mountain West as it continues to build its brand that has proven to elevate institutions and student-athletes,” commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement. “… I believe UC Davis brings a wealth of positives in the continuing growth of the Mountain West.”
UC Davis will compete in all 16 Mountain West-sponsored sports, and it is expected to remain an affiliate member in the Big West in sports such as water polo and beach volleyball.
“We are grateful to the Mountain West Conference membership for this incredible opportunity and for sharing our vision of academic and athletics excellence,” UC Davis athletics director Rocko DeLuca said in a statement. “Our campus leadership, students, Aggie alumni, fans, the Davis community and the broader Sacramento region all recognize the unique spirit of UC Davis and carry Aggie Pride with them each and every day. They have invested their time, talent and resources in supporting our growth, and the success of our fall sports is a clear reflection of those efforts.”
This is the latest move for the new-look conference, which saw five of its long-standing members — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State — announce earlier this year that they would leave to join the Pac-12’s rebuilding effort starting in 2026.
A move to the FBS level in football would not be possible without additional investment — a possibility DeLuca did not dismiss.
The Aggies earned the No. 5 seed in the FCS playoffs and will play at No. 4 South Dakota on Saturday. After losing the season opener against Cal, Davis went 11-1 the rest of the way and finished in second place in the Big Sky Conference, behind No. 1-ranked Montana State.
“Our intention is to continue to close the gap up into the Big Sky and Missouri Valley conferences,” DeLuca told ESPN. “Obviously, we were having a good year this year, but there’s some infrastructure and other things that some of those teams have on us that we got to continue to get competitive. And if we do that, depending on what the future holds with FBS football, you never know what’s possible.”
The UC Davis men’s basketball team reached the NCAA basketball tournament as a No. 16 seed in 2017. Its women’s basketball team reached the NCAA tournament in 2019, 2022, and 2023, losing in the first round on all three occasions.
