Big 12 football: Ranking the league’s 5 best expansion options ‘out west’
By John Scimeca
3. San Diego State Aztecs
The Aztecs are an intriguing potential addition to the Big 12, mainly because they currently play in the Mountain West. There’s no telling what the immediate future holds for the league, as its best members are certainly hearing overtures from different power conferences amid some of the post-USC and UCLA uncertainty out West.
The benefits are pretty obvious to adding San Diego State to the Big 12. First, the university just completed construction on a new football stadium. With the nice digs and with no NFL franchise in town anymore, the Aztecs could be posed to seize the attention of southern California in a way that only USC seems able to do these days.
On the field, San Diego State can hold its own. It has compiled double-digit wins in five of the past seven season’s 12-2 team that featured wins against Arizona and Utah — before the Utes went on to win the Pac-12. The Aztecs, in fact, are 7-3 against Pac-12 teams since 2016.
The numbers bode well for SDSU, too, as 3.3 million people call the growing San Diego County home.
Despite the season-opening home loss to Arizona to start 2022, San Diego State should be in fine shape to at least return to the Mountain West title game. It’s arguably the most attractive non-power conference school in the West for the Big 12 to add, especially if there’s an emphasis on the Pacific Time Zone and/or the state of California.