Latest news with #SanMarcos
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Texas State in the Pac-12: The Sports Office
Texas State has joined the revamped Pac-12 Conference. Can the Bobcats become an instant threat in the new look football conference? Who is Texas State's next great rival? Will this help them in recruiting and keep head coach G.J. Kinne in San Marcos a little longer? Dennis and Julian break it down and also welcome on Mike "Hardball" Hardge to give his thoughts.
CNN
22-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- CNN
‘Quiet relationships,' ‘soft launches' and the rest of Gen Z's new love language
Age & Generations Social media RelationshipsFacebookTweetLink Follow When someone scrolls through Val's Instagram page, they can see a recent camping trip she took with friends, a batch of homemade chicken nuggets and a few of her favorite memes. But what they can't see: Val, 22, got engaged nine months ago to her boyfriend of two years. She never made a post about the proposal — and she doesn't plan to. 'We are happy and content as we are, living our lives together privately … no outsiders peering in through the windows, so to speak,' said Val, who lives with her fiancé in San Marcos, Texas, and asked CNN not to use her last name for privacy reasons. Val is one of a growing number of young adults from Generation Z, the cohort from age 28 down to teenagers, who are opting for 'quiet relationships,' in which their love lives — the good and the bad —remain offline and out of view from a larger audience of friends and family. It's a new turn back to the old way of doing things: date nights without selfies, small weddings without public photo galleries and conflict without a procession of passive-aggressive posts. On platforms such as TikTok, creators declaring this preference for 'quiet' or 'private' relationships rake in thousands of views, and on Pinterest, searches for 'city hall elopement' surged over 190% from 2023 to 2024. If your prefrontal cortex developed before the iPhone came along, you may be rolling your eyes. But for a generation raised on social media, rejecting the pressure to post is a novel development — and one that experts say could redefine the future of intimacy. Gen Z's turn toward privacy partly stems from a growing discomfort with how social media shapes — and distorts — romantic relationships, said Rae Weiss, a Gen Z dating coach studying for her master's degree in psychology at Columbia University in New York City. A couple that appears to be #relationshipgoals may flaunt their luxury vacations together, picture-perfect date nights, matching outfits and grand romantic gestures. But Gen Z has been online long enough to know it's all just a carefully curated ruse. 'It's no longer a secret that on social media, you're only posting the best moments of your life, the best angles, the best pictures, the filters,' Weiss said. 'Young people are becoming more aware that it can create some level of dissonance and insecurity when your relationship doesn't look like that all the time.' Indeed, there are messy, complicated and outright mundane moments to every relationship — but those aren't algorithmically climbing the ranks (unless the tea is piping hot, of course.) This can lead some to equate the value of their relationships with how 'Instagrammable' they are, Weiss said. Frequently broadcasting your relationship on social media has even been linked to lower levels of overall satisfaction and an anxious attachment style between partners, according to a 2023 study. Embracing private relationships, then, is partly Gen Z's way of rejecting the suffocating pressures of perfection and returning to the value of real-life displays of affection. 'There's less incentive to 'keep up' with others' posts,' said Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and professor emerita of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. 'This can protect against relationship envy or distorted expectations, comparing the relationship to others' public presentations.' While Val said she has certainly felt the pressure to show off her love life in the past, she ultimately thinks a digital shrine to her fiancé would feel too false. 'It feels like I'm trying to prove something, to prove that we love each other, when the proof is all around us: our cats, our home and life that we've built together,' Val said. 'He doesn't need to see me posting about him to know that I love him.' Jason Basnyat, 21, who has been seeing his current girlfriend for nearly a year but isn't posting any photos of the two of them together, admits the main reason he's not oversharing is to avoid putting his relationship through the same scrutiny his friends apply to other couples. 'I don't like the thought of being perceived and talked about,' said Basnyat, a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 'I've even stopped talking to a lot of my friends about (relationships) because I found that they'll start to see your partner differently.' For Basnyat, his reluctance to share about his love life is not so much a fear of being publicly shamed or bullied, but the imagined group chat discussions, private direct messages and Instagram investigations he may be subjected to. Social anxiety is nothing new, but for a generation raised online, a new form of it has become endemic to our way of relating to one another, said Brooke Duffy, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. 'Imagined surveillance,' as she calls it, is the feeling that your every move is being watched and scrutinized by an ambiguous audience, and she said it's a product of how social media has normalized voyeurism. 'To broadcast your relationship means to open it up to a public audience and have people trawl through images and dissect the communication,' Duffy said of her research. 'Of course, influencers are under a high-powered microscope, but we found this was an organizing principle for how young people create content online.' The fear is that others aren't just looking at your relationship — they are staring at it, digging into it, and passing moral judgments on you and your partner. All of that noise, real or imagined, can cloud your own appraisal of the person you're with, especially early on in a relationship, said 26-year-old Jillian St. Onge. 'I refrained from sharing my relationship with my followers for a while, and also from my family truthfully,' said St. Onge, who lives in New York and is now engaged to her partner. 'Heartbreak is hard enough on its own, so when everybody knows everything too early, you feel like you owe others, even random people, an explanation as to what went awry. … Being intentionally private allowed me to form opinions for myself and really focus on building a deep connection.' The days of posting moody, vague jabs at your partner during a period of conflict are over, St. Onge said. While it can feel vindicating to rally an audience around your perspective, the move is shortsighted and often stokes more drama than it's worth, she said. But despite being highly aware of their own surveillance, members of Gen Z still manage to invent new ways of indulging the desire to share. 'Soft-launching,' for example, is one way someone can share the fact that they are in a relationship without giving away the identity of their partner, Duffy said. Pinterest is flooded with soft-launch ideas: two plates on the dinner table, two silhouettes cast against a blank wall, two pairs of shoes sitting next to one another. For St. Onge, who regularly posts videos of her day-to-day life, a soft launch on her socials after about five months of dating her now-fiancé was exactly the level of privacy she needed. Basnyat also makes a distinction between what goes on the 'grid,' where photos are permanent until deleted, and on the 'story,' where posts disappear within 24 hours. 'A story doesn't have to have the same communicative impact as something that's on your grid,' Duffy explained. 'It captures a fleeting moment, and I think because of that, people are more willing to step outside the boundaries of their personal profile or brand.' From an outsider's perspective, privacy and secrecy can look the same, said Lia Huynh, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in San Jose, California. 'However, the motive is different,' Huynh said in an email. 'Privacy aims to protect, to be cautious and careful. Someone who wants privacy doesn't want the relationship to be hidden, but feels it is necessary to protect the relationship.' Secrecy, on the other hand, comes at the expense of the other person, and often has a more selfish motive such as feelings of shame or embarrassment, Huynh said. So how can couples tell the difference? First, Huynh recommends private partners identify their own motives. 'It's important for the person who wants privacy to make sure they communicate that they are not ashamed of their partner, nor are they doing it to keep their options open,' Huynh said. 'Make sure you both agree on what this looks like.' Weiss said communication can be tricky when dealing with a mismatch of expectations, in which one partner values the input of their wider social circle more than the other does. It's also important to have at least one or two people outside the relationship you feel comfortable talking to when you just need to vent or if the conflict becomes too difficult to manage on your own, Weiss said. 'I always say listen to your gut. … It comes down to identifying values. Whatever the relationship struggle you're experiencing is, ask how (you can) come up with solutions in a way that aligns with your values,' Weiss said. Overall, to Rutledge, who has studied social media since its inception, the 'quiet relationship' is a wholly positive turn for how young people conduct their personal lives. 'We've seen more young people opting for digital detoxes, living in the moment,' Rutledge said. 'It's not necessary, but it can be very revealing. Anything that encourages people to be more (intentional) with their use of social media, rather than passive, is a good sign.' EDITOR'S NOTE: Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN's Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.
CNN
22-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- CNN
‘Quiet relationships,' ‘soft launches' and the rest of Gen Z's new love language
Age & Generations Social media RelationshipsFacebookTweetLink Follow When someone scrolls through Val's Instagram page, they can see a recent camping trip she took with friends, a batch of homemade chicken nuggets and a few of her favorite memes. But what they can't see: Val, 22, got engaged nine months ago to her boyfriend of two years. She never made a post about the proposal — and she doesn't plan to. 'We are happy and content as we are, living our lives together privately … no outsiders peering in through the windows, so to speak,' said Val, who lives with her fiancé in San Marcos, Texas, and asked CNN not to use her last name for privacy reasons. Val is one of a growing number of young adults from Generation Z, the cohort from age 28 down to teenagers, who are opting for 'quiet relationships,' in which their love lives — the good and the bad —remain offline and out of view from a larger audience of friends and family. It's a new turn back to the old way of doing things: date nights without selfies, small weddings without public photo galleries and conflict without a procession of passive-aggressive posts. On platforms such as TikTok, creators declaring this preference for 'quiet' or 'private' relationships rake in thousands of views, and on Pinterest, searches for 'city hall elopement' surged over 190% from 2023 to 2024. If your prefrontal cortex developed before the iPhone came along, you may be rolling your eyes. But for a generation raised on social media, rejecting the pressure to post is a novel development — and one that experts say could redefine the future of intimacy. Gen Z's turn toward privacy partly stems from a growing discomfort with how social media shapes — and distorts — romantic relationships, said Rae Weiss, a Gen Z dating coach studying for her master's degree in psychology at Columbia University in New York City. A couple that appears to be #relationshipgoals may flaunt their luxury vacations together, picture-perfect date nights, matching outfits and grand romantic gestures. But Gen Z has been online long enough to know it's all just a carefully curated ruse. 'It's no longer a secret that on social media, you're only posting the best moments of your life, the best angles, the best pictures, the filters,' Weiss said. 'Young people are becoming more aware that it can create some level of dissonance and insecurity when your relationship doesn't look like that all the time.' Indeed, there are messy, complicated and outright mundane moments to every relationship — but those aren't algorithmically climbing the ranks (unless the tea is piping hot, of course.) This can lead some to equate the value of their relationships with how 'Instagrammable' they are, Weiss said. Frequently broadcasting your relationship on social media has even been linked to lower levels of overall satisfaction and an anxious attachment style between partners, according to a 2023 study. Embracing private relationships, then, is partly Gen Z's way of rejecting the suffocating pressures of perfection and returning to the value of real-life displays of affection. 'There's less incentive to 'keep up' with others' posts,' said Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and professor emerita of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. 'This can protect against relationship envy or distorted expectations, comparing the relationship to others' public presentations.' While Val said she has certainly felt the pressure to show off her love life in the past, she ultimately thinks a digital shrine to her fiancé would feel too false. 'It feels like I'm trying to prove something, to prove that we love each other, when the proof is all around us: our cats, our home and life that we've built together,' Val said. 'He doesn't need to see me posting about him to know that I love him.' Jason Basnyat, 21, who has been seeing his current girlfriend for nearly a year but isn't posting any photos of the two of them together, admits the main reason he's not oversharing is to avoid putting his relationship through the same scrutiny his friends apply to other couples. 'I don't like the thought of being perceived and talked about,' said Basnyat, a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 'I've even stopped talking to a lot of my friends about (relationships) because I found that they'll start to see your partner differently.' For Basnyat, his reluctance to share about his love life is not so much a fear of being publicly shamed or bullied, but the imagined group chat discussions, private direct messages and Instagram investigations he may be subjected to. Social anxiety is nothing new, but for a generation raised online, a new form of it has become endemic to our way of relating to one another, said Brooke Duffy, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. 'Imagined surveillance,' as she calls it, is the feeling that your every move is being watched and scrutinized by an ambiguous audience, and she said it's a product of how social media has normalized voyeurism. 'To broadcast your relationship means to open it up to a public audience and have people trawl through images and dissect the communication,' Duffy said of her research. 'Of course, influencers are under a high-powered microscope, but we found this was an organizing principle for how young people create content online.' The fear is that others aren't just looking at your relationship — they are staring at it, digging into it, and passing moral judgments on you and your partner. All of that noise, real or imagined, can cloud your own appraisal of the person you're with, especially early on in a relationship, said 26-year-old Jillian St. Onge. 'I refrained from sharing my relationship with my followers for a while, and also from my family truthfully,' said St. Onge, who lives in New York and is now engaged to her partner. 'Heartbreak is hard enough on its own, so when everybody knows everything too early, you feel like you owe others, even random people, an explanation as to what went awry. … Being intentionally private allowed me to form opinions for myself and really focus on building a deep connection.' The days of posting moody, vague jabs at your partner during a period of conflict are over, St. Onge said. While it can feel vindicating to rally an audience around your perspective, the move is shortsighted and often stokes more drama than it's worth, she said. But despite being highly aware of their own surveillance, members of Gen Z still manage to invent new ways of indulging the desire to share. 'Soft-launching,' for example, is one way someone can share the fact that they are in a relationship without giving away the identity of their partner, Duffy said. Pinterest is flooded with soft-launch ideas: two plates on the dinner table, two silhouettes cast against a blank wall, two pairs of shoes sitting next to one another. For St. Onge, who regularly posts videos of her day-to-day life, a soft launch on her socials after about five months of dating her now-fiancé was exactly the level of privacy she needed. Basnyat also makes a distinction between what goes on the 'grid,' where photos are permanent until deleted, and on the 'story,' where posts disappear within 24 hours. 'A story doesn't have to have the same communicative impact as something that's on your grid,' Duffy explained. 'It captures a fleeting moment, and I think because of that, people are more willing to step outside the boundaries of their personal profile or brand.' From an outsider's perspective, privacy and secrecy can look the same, said Lia Huynh, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in San Jose, California. 'However, the motive is different,' Huynh said in an email. 'Privacy aims to protect, to be cautious and careful. Someone who wants privacy doesn't want the relationship to be hidden, but feels it is necessary to protect the relationship.' Secrecy, on the other hand, comes at the expense of the other person, and often has a more selfish motive such as feelings of shame or embarrassment, Huynh said. So how can couples tell the difference? First, Huynh recommends private partners identify their own motives. 'It's important for the person who wants privacy to make sure they communicate that they are not ashamed of their partner, nor are they doing it to keep their options open,' Huynh said. 'Make sure you both agree on what this looks like.' Weiss said communication can be tricky when dealing with a mismatch of expectations, in which one partner values the input of their wider social circle more than the other does. It's also important to have at least one or two people outside the relationship you feel comfortable talking to when you just need to vent or if the conflict becomes too difficult to manage on your own, Weiss said. 'I always say listen to your gut. … It comes down to identifying values. Whatever the relationship struggle you're experiencing is, ask how (you can) come up with solutions in a way that aligns with your values,' Weiss said. Overall, to Rutledge, who has studied social media since its inception, the 'quiet relationship' is a wholly positive turn for how young people conduct their personal lives. 'We've seen more young people opting for digital detoxes, living in the moment,' Rutledge said. 'It's not necessary, but it can be very revealing. Anything that encourages people to be more (intentional) with their use of social media, rather than passive, is a good sign.' EDITOR'S NOTE: Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN's Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.
CNN
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
‘Quiet relationships,' ‘soft launches' and the rest of Gen Z's new love language
When someone scrolls through Val's Instagram page, they can see a recent camping trip she took with friends, a batch of homemade chicken nuggets and a few of her favorite memes. But what they can't see: Val, 22, got engaged nine months ago to her boyfriend of two years. She never made a post about the proposal — and she doesn't plan to. 'We are happy and content as we are, living our lives together privately … no outsiders peering in through the windows, so to speak,' said Val, who lives with her fiancé in San Marcos, Texas, and asked CNN not to use her last name for privacy reasons. Val is one of a growing number of young adults from Generation Z, the cohort from age 28 down to teenagers, who are opting for 'quiet relationships,' in which their love lives — the good and the bad —remain offline and out of view from a larger audience of friends and family. It's a new turn back to the old way of doing things: date nights without selfies, small weddings without public photo galleries and conflict without a procession of passive-aggressive posts. On platforms such as TikTok, creators declaring this preference for 'quiet' or 'private' relationships rake in thousands of views, and on Pinterest, searches for 'city hall elopement' surged over 190% from 2023 to 2024. If your prefrontal cortex developed before the iPhone came along, you may be rolling your eyes. But for a generation raised on social media, rejecting the pressure to post is a novel development — and one that experts say could redefine the future of intimacy. Gen Z's turn toward privacy partly stems from a growing discomfort with how social media shapes — and distorts — romantic relationships, said Rae Weiss, a Gen Z dating coach studying for her master's degree in psychology at Columbia University in New York City. A couple that appears to be #relationshipgoals may flaunt their luxury vacations together, picture-perfect date nights, matching outfits and grand romantic gestures. But Gen Z has been online long enough to know it's all just a carefully curated ruse. 'It's no longer a secret that on social media, you're only posting the best moments of your life, the best angles, the best pictures, the filters,' Weiss said. 'Young people are becoming more aware that it can create some level of dissonance and insecurity when your relationship doesn't look like that all the time.' Indeed, there are messy, complicated and outright mundane moments to every relationship — but those aren't algorithmically climbing the ranks (unless the tea is piping hot, of course.) This can lead some to equate the value of their relationships with how 'Instagrammable' they are, Weiss said. Frequently broadcasting your relationship on social media has even been linked to lower levels of overall satisfaction and an anxious attachment style between partners, according to a 2023 study. Embracing private relationships, then, is partly Gen Z's way of rejecting the suffocating pressures of perfection and returning to the value of real-life displays of affection. 'There's less incentive to 'keep up' with others' posts,' said Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and professor emerita of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. 'This can protect against relationship envy or distorted expectations, comparing the relationship to others' public presentations.' While Val said she has certainly felt the pressure to show off her love life in the past, she ultimately thinks a digital shrine to her fiancé would feel too false. 'It feels like I'm trying to prove something, to prove that we love each other, when the proof is all around us: our cats, our home and life that we've built together,' Val said. 'He doesn't need to see me posting about him to know that I love him.' Jason Basnyat, 21, who has been seeing his current girlfriend for nearly a year but isn't posting any photos of the two of them together, admits the main reason he's not oversharing is to avoid putting his relationship through the same scrutiny his friends apply to other couples. 'I don't like the thought of being perceived and talked about,' said Basnyat, a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 'I've even stopped talking to a lot of my friends about (relationships) because I found that they'll start to see your partner differently.' For Basnyat, his reluctance to share about his love life is not so much a fear of being publicly shamed or bullied, but the imagined group chat discussions, private direct messages and Instagram investigations he may be subjected to. Social anxiety is nothing new, but for a generation raised online, a new form of it has become endemic to our way of relating to one another, said Brooke Duffy, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. 'Imagined surveillance,' as she calls it, is the feeling that your every move is being watched and scrutinized by an ambiguous audience, and she said it's a product of how social media has normalized voyeurism. 'To broadcast your relationship means to open it up to a public audience and have people trawl through images and dissect the communication,' Duffy said of her research. 'Of course, influencers are under a high-powered microscope, but we found this was an organizing principle for how young people create content online.' The fear is that others aren't just looking at your relationship — they are staring at it, digging into it, and passing moral judgments on you and your partner. All of that noise, real or imagined, can cloud your own appraisal of the person you're with, especially early on in a relationship, said 26-year-old Jillian St. Onge. 'I refrained from sharing my relationship with my followers for a while, and also from my family truthfully,' said St. Onge, who lives in New York and is now engaged to her partner. 'Heartbreak is hard enough on its own, so when everybody knows everything too early, you feel like you owe others, even random people, an explanation as to what went awry. … Being intentionally private allowed me to form opinions for myself and really focus on building a deep connection.' The days of posting moody, vague jabs at your partner during a period of conflict are over, St. Onge said. While it can feel vindicating to rally an audience around your perspective, the move is shortsighted and often stokes more drama than it's worth, she said. But despite being highly aware of their own surveillance, members of Gen Z still manage to invent new ways of indulging the desire to share. 'Soft-launching,' for example, is one way someone can share the fact that they are in a relationship without giving away the identity of their partner, Duffy said. Pinterest is flooded with soft-launch ideas: two plates on the dinner table, two silhouettes cast against a blank wall, two pairs of shoes sitting next to one another. For St. Onge, who regularly posts videos of her day-to-day life, a soft launch on her socials after about five months of dating her now-fiancé was exactly the level of privacy she needed. Basnyat also makes a distinction between what goes on the 'grid,' where photos are permanent until deleted, and on the 'story,' where posts disappear within 24 hours. 'A story doesn't have to have the same communicative impact as something that's on your grid,' Duffy explained. 'It captures a fleeting moment, and I think because of that, people are more willing to step outside the boundaries of their personal profile or brand.' From an outsider's perspective, privacy and secrecy can look the same, said Lia Huynh, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in San Jose, California. 'However, the motive is different,' Huynh said in an email. 'Privacy aims to protect, to be cautious and careful. Someone who wants privacy doesn't want the relationship to be hidden, but feels it is necessary to protect the relationship.' Secrecy, on the other hand, comes at the expense of the other person, and often has a more selfish motive such as feelings of shame or embarrassment, Huynh said. So how can couples tell the difference? First, Huynh recommends private partners identify their own motives. 'It's important for the person who wants privacy to make sure they communicate that they are not ashamed of their partner, nor are they doing it to keep their options open,' Huynh said. 'Make sure you both agree on what this looks like.' Weiss said communication can be tricky when dealing with a mismatch of expectations, in which one partner values the input of their wider social circle more than the other does. It's also important to have at least one or two people outside the relationship you feel comfortable talking to when you just need to vent or if the conflict becomes too difficult to manage on your own, Weiss said. 'I always say listen to your gut. … It comes down to identifying values. Whatever the relationship struggle you're experiencing is, ask how (you can) come up with solutions in a way that aligns with your values,' Weiss said. Overall, to Rutledge, who has studied social media since its inception, the 'quiet relationship' is a wholly positive turn for how young people conduct their personal lives. 'We've seen more young people opting for digital detoxes, living in the moment,' Rutledge said. 'It's not necessary, but it can be very revealing. Anything that encourages people to be more (intentional) with their use of social media, rather than passive, is a good sign.' EDITOR'S NOTE: Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN's Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Texas State Joins Pac-12 In Latest Round Of Conference Realignment
Texas State quarterback Gresch Jensen throws during an NCAA football game against Wyoming on ... More Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019 in San Marcos, Texas. Wyoming won 23-14. (AP Photo/Darren Abate) The Pac-12 announced on Monday that the Texas State Bobcats will join the conference as its ninth member beginning with the 2026–27 season. The move gives the Pac-12 a foothold in the state of Texas, opening the door to new media markets, fertile recruiting pipelines, and expanded presence across time zones for television deals. Most importantly, the addition of Texas State gives the conference the eight requisite number of teams it needs to compete at the FBS level starting in the 2026-27 season. There had been much speculation surrounding Pac-12 conference expansion since the conference announced its plans to add members of the Mountain West Conference in September 2024. With Texas State now on board, the Pac-12 appears to have stabilized its footing and reasserted itself as a legitimate player in the Group of Five landscape Brief History Pac-12 Conference Realignment LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 21: the Pac-12 helmet and official game ball on display in front of Resorts ... More World for Pac-12 Media Day at Zouk Nightclub at Resorts World Las Vegas on July 21, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by) While the broader story of college football realignment does not begin with the Pac-12, few conferences have been more dramatically reshaped by it. In what now seems like ancient history, the Pac-10 Conference originally pushed to expand into the state of Texas when it pursued the University of Texas in 2010. That deal ultimately fell through, but it marked the beginning of a series of realignment waves that would transform the national landscape. The Pac-10 soon became the Pac-12, adding Colorado and Utah, and for a time, the conference looked poised to rival the SEC and Big Ten in prominence. But a combination of media rights missteps, leadership turnover, and on-field struggles left the Pac-12 vulnerable. The exodus began in earnest in 2022 and 2023, when USC and UCLA announced their departure to the Big Ten, followed by Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado. FILE - An Oregon State fan, front, and a Washington State fan hold "Pac-2" signs, representing the ... More two schools that will remain in the Pac-12 after the 2023-2024 academic year after the other schools in the conference announced plans to leave, during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, in Pullman, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak, File) Oregon State and Washington State were left holding the banner. Rather than fold, the two schools leveraged their legal control of the conference and its remaining assets to rebuild. They moved quickly to bring in Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Gonzaga (non-football), San Diego State, and Utah State. Now, in a full-circle twist, the Pac-12 has finally entered Texas, not with the Longhorns, but with Texas State. What Texas State Brings To The Pac-12 Located in the heart of one of the fastest-growing corridors in the country, between Austin and San Antonio, Texas State offers the Pac-12 a critical geographic foothold in Central Texas, a state long viewed as essential to the college football ecosystem. The Bobcats joined the Pac-12 just one day before a July 1 deadline where the buyout to leave the Sun Belt would have doubled from $5 million to $10 million. Texas State's Brock Sturges (5) leads the team onto the field before an NCAA college football game ... More in San Marcos, Texas, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Texas State is a growing university of almost 38,000 students that recently invested $149 million into its athletics facilities including a $37 million football performance center and a $23 million stadium naming rights partnership with University Federal Credit Union. The fan base has responded in kind. Over the past two seasons, Texas State has posted consecutive attendance records, reflecting an energized community and growing local interest in the program's trajectory. On the field, the Bobcats are catching attention. Under head coach G.J. Kinne, Texas State went 8–5 last season and came within three points of defeating Arizona State, a team that went on to play in the College Football Playoff. SAN MARCOS, TX - OCTOBER 14: The Texas State Bobcats logo is displayed on the stadium during Sun ... More Belt Conference game featuring the University of Louisiana Monroe Warhawks and the Texas State Bobcats on October 14, 2023 at Jim Wacker Field at Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos, TX. (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) In a landscape where conferences are prioritizing upside, flexibility, and untapped potential, Texas State is a bet on the future. A university that's building fast, buying in fully, and ready to compete on a national stage. What's Next for the Sun Belt? TROY, AL - NOVEMBER 21: A view of the Sun Belt Conference logo on the down marker during the game ... More between the Troy Trojans and the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders on November 21, 2020 at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Troy, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Texas State's departure brings the Sun Belt Conference from 14 to 13 members, a change that could prompt the league to explore expansion options to restore numerical balance and maintain divisional alignment. The Sun Belt's latest expansion, which added Southern Mississippi, Marshall, Old Dominion, and James Madison, solidified its reputation as a rising Group of Five conference with strong regional rivalries and growing football relevance. FORT WORTH, TX - DECEMBER 23: Louisiana Tech Bulldogs place kicker Jonathan Barnes (10) kicks the ... More game winning field goal as time expires in the Armed Forces Bowl between the Navy Midshipmen and Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on December 23, 2016, at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, TX. Louisiana Tech defeats Navy 48-45. (Photo by Andrew Dieb/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Speculation is starting to spread on whether the Sun Belt will look to add another team to account for the loss of Texas State. Potential candidates include current Conference-USA members Louisiana Tech, Florida International, Middle Tennessee State, and Western Kentucky. The latter three schools are all former Sun Belt members. Each candidate presents a different mix of geographic alignment, institutional fit, and media potential. The Sun Belt has been strategic in recent years, prioritizing football-first programs with regional appeal. A New Era for the Pac-12 LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 16: Kenny Wooten #14 of the Oregon Ducks is introduced before the ... More championship game of the Pac-12 basketball tournament against the Washington Huskies at T-Mobile Arena on March 16, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by) Texas State's move to the Pac-12 marks more than just a change in conference affiliation, it reflects the broader evolution of college football. For the Pac-12, the addition of Texas State secures a critical eighth FBS member, expands the league's footprint into a talent-rich region, and signals a willingness to reinvent. For Texas State, the move represents a significant step up in visibility, competition, and opportunity.
