And now for some Pac12/MWC/ETC realignment chatter that's probably already outdated for some reason

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By its very nature, college athletics realignment news cycles are chaotic. Few folks have direct, first-hand information, but plenty of others are talking. Few have any incentive to be truthful to their peers, commissioners, etc. Every school is constantly talking to every league…and trying to figure out who to believe can feel impossible.

But hey, you good folks pay me to try, so that’s exactly what I did.

As of 9:03 PM CST on Monday night, here’s where things stand on the conference realignment front:

• The Pac-12, a conference that has six schools (Oregon State, Washington State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State), attempted to recruit multiple members of the AAC, centering on Memphis and Tulane. Monday afternoon, those institutions elected to remain in the AAC, prompting a run of press releases and public statements.

• The Mountain West, eager to prevent additional defections to the Pac-12 and the AAC potentially moving on Air Force, worked to secure longer-term commitments from the league’s remaining members in exchange for more generous financial distributions. On Monday evening, schools like UNLV and Air Force, along with other MWC institutions, reportedly signed an agreement indicating they planned to commit to the MWC so long as everybody else did.

• But one school, Utah State, decided to accept an invitation to the Pac-12. That defection reportedly moved UNLV and Air Force to reconsider their previous agreements (since the MWC now doesn’t have eight schools).

• So as of this second, the Pac-12 now has seven members, as does the Mountain West. Leagues need a minimum of eight members to comply with NCAA and CFB bylaws. Yahoo! reports that the Pac-12 has also kicked the tires on Gonzaga and a football-only arrangement with UConn. I was also told that Pac-12 officials have also had talks with Hawaii, currently an FB-only affiliate member of the MWC. Industry sources told me that Hawaii was not asked to sign the MWC commitment agreement that other MWC institutions signed on Monday.

So why did all of this happen? And what’s next?

Well, here’s what I’ve been told.

Why did so many other schools turn down the Pac-12?

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