San Diego State is reportedly expected to deliver a notice to the Mountain West Conference on Friday, detailing that it no longer plans to withdraw from the league, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
The reported reverse in the program’s course of action comes two weeks after San Diego State had sent a written notification to the league that it intended to depart the conference. The program had been connected to possible expansion opportunities in the Pac-12 and Big 12.
Friday marked the deadline for SDSU to inform the league on if it was officially leaving the conference. SDSU had also requested the conference to delay its official deadline to exit, according to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger. If the Aztecs would have departed the conference, they would have been responsible for paying a $17 million exit fee, per Dellenger.
The Mountain West initially considered the original letter sent by San Diego State to be a withdrawal, Dellenger noted on Friday, making the league’s pending response to this latest notice very significant.
SDSU has been a member of the MWC since 1999 after spending more than two decades in the Western Athletic Conference. As a MWC member, Aztecs men’s basketball has made 12 NCAA tournament appearances, including a national runner-up finish in this year’s Big Dance.
In football, SDSU has registered 12 appearances in postseason bowl games since 2000 as part of the MWC.
