Northern Illinois will join the Mountain West as a football-only member in July 2026, following approval of the $2 million membership fee from its board of trustees on Tuesday.

“Get ready, Mountain West,” board of trustees member Dennis Barsema said to close the unanimous vote. “The NIU football Huskies are coming in 2026.”

The move will see NIU football leave the Mid-American Conference for a league whose current easternmost member is located in Colorado Springs, Colo., while NIU’s other sports are expected to move to another Midwest-based conference yet to be determined.

“We’ve proven that we can compete with anyone in the country,” athletic director Sean Frazier said. “Coming in the expectation in the Mountain West is to be extremely competitive to the point of that we’re not looking to come in and just win games. We’re looking to win championships. That has been the identity that we’ve had, and I feel really good — I won’t say comfortable — I feel really good feel that we’re going to be able to do that Day 1 when we go into the conference.”

Northern Illinois, located in DeKalb, Ill., has fielded arguably the top football program in the MAC for the past decade-plus. Its five MAC titles since 2010 lead the league in that span. The Huskies reached the Orange Bowl in 2013 and upset Notre Dame this year, the third time in four years they’ve beaten a Power 4 team.

This will not be the first time NIU has joined a conference out west. The Huskies were part of the Big West from 1993 to ’95 before spending one year as an independent and returning to the MAC in 1997. NIU was also in the MAC from 1975 to ’85. A move to the Mountain West will reunite NIU with Nevada, San Jose State and UNLV from that Big West era.

There is belief within the Mountain West that NIU’s location in the Central time zone can help the league with its next TV deal, which is up in a few years. With the Huskies in the fold, the league’s football teams will play across four time zones (including Hawaii). The Mountain West’s current TV deal is far more lucrative than the MAC’s, one reason NIU was interested in making the move. The remaining Mountain West schools also have larger budgets and investment than much of the MAC.

“It’s clear that we have the the ability to compete on the national level in FBS football, and we’ve proven that, not just the fact that we knocked off Notre Dame, and I’ll say that, put that on the record, but we’ve done this on a consistent basis with institutions that have more resources than ours, and we’ve been able to compete and stay there,” Frazier said.

The move will give the Mountain West 11 total members and nine football-playing members in 2026. The Mountain West is set to lose Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State to the rebuilding Pac-12 in 2026, but it will add UTEP as an all-sports member, convert Hawaii from a football-only member to a full-time member and add Grand Canyon and UC Davis as full non-football members.

Following the Pac-12 defections in September, the Mountain West worked to keep UNLV and Air Force from leaving, providing them with heavy financial incentives to remain in the league. After they committed to stay, the conference went on the offensive to add to its numbers. Football Bowl Subdivision rules required the league to get to eight full-football members by 2028 to maintain conference recognition.

The Mountain West’s football members will include Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP and Wyoming.

The MAC is set to add UMass as an all-sports member on July 1, 2025, putting it at 13 members for one season, before NIU leaves.

— The Athletic‘s Matt Baker and Scott Dochterman contributed reporting.

(Photo: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)