Welcome back everyone to the Hike’s Peak podcast, thank you for coming back to the mountain! One week after the Mountain West announced the addition of North Dakota State, the conference realignment dominoes continued to fall with Sacramento State joining the MAC? We’re going to break that move down, but mainly we’ll focus on why the Mountain West didn’t go after the Hornets, and what these last two weeks tell us about the future of the conference. After that, we’ll dive back into basketball talk, and with only three weeks left in the regular season, we’re going over every team’s resume to this point, complete with their chances of making it to March Madness. Fun episode this week, let’s dive in!

Show notes:

1. Sacramento State joins the MAC: Financials, Precedent of Pay to Move Up, & more
2. CBB Resume Recap for all 12 teams
   1. Cream of the Crop: Utah State, San Diego State
   2. March Madness Bubble: New Mexico, Nevada, Grand Canyon
   3. Don't count them out: UNLV, Boise State, Colorado State
   4. Not their year: Fresno State, Wyoming
   5. Really not their year: San Jose State, Air Force

If you enjoy the episode, consider rating it 5 stars, leaving a review on Apple Podcast/Spotify, or sharing the podcast with one friend who you think would enjoy it! It would help us immensely if you took the time out of your day to help the show! Our CFB transfer portal tracker is now LIVE, find that here and keep an eye out for daily updates (North Dakota State is now included!). Make sure to check out the depth chart tracker for football and basketball, available to all for free and updated as soon as news breaks! Thank you for coming back to the mountain, and we hope you’ll make the trek back up here for the rest of the football offseason and home stretch for basketball!

Welcome to episode 49.5 (episode 50 needs one more week to be perfect)! We have a mountain of portal news to cover, with new landing spots for stars like Lamont Butler and Rytis Petraitis, to the John Tonje chronicles! We also hit you with the most important updates from the CFB spring transfer window, and we end the show by going over both of the players from the Mountain West that got drafted into the NFL, along with all of the players who have been signed as undrafted free agents! Enjoy, and make sure to tune in for an awesome episode 50!

Welcome back everyone to the Hike’s Peak podcast, thank you for coming back to the mountain! We have to take a quick break from talking basketball, as the Mountain West has officially welcomed their 10th member for the 2026 football season, which is none other than the giant killers themselves North Dakota State! We’ll break down how this agreement came to be, complete with financials and the specifics of when the Bison will be eligible for postseason play, and then we’ll dive into the story of how North Dakota State got so dominant, that the Mountain West had to make them their first ever FCS call-up. It’s a story of stardom, familiar faces, and most importantly, a whole lot of winning, and after giving the program their flowers, we’ll finish the show with the pros and cons of this addition from the conference’s perspective, as well as discussing what this means for the next round of expansion. Massive episode this week, let’s dive right in!

Show Notes:

1. How the deal was reached: Financials, transition period, no postseason w/o waiver until 2028
2. North Dakota State: How the Bison took over the FCS for two decades
3. Introducing NDSU head coach Tim Polasek
4. Pros & Cons of NDSU addition from the Mountain West's perspective (w/ likely targets for next round of expansion)

If you enjoy the episode, consider rating it 5 stars, leaving a review on Apple Podcast/Spotify, or sharing the podcast with one friend who you think would enjoy it! It would help us immensely if you took the time out of your day to help the show! Our CFB transfer portal tracker is now LIVE, find that here and keep an eye out for daily updates (North Dakota State will be added later this week). Make sure to check out the depth chart tracker for football and basketball, available to all for free and updated as soon as news breaks! Thank you for coming back to the mountain, and we hope you’ll make the trek back up here for the rest of the football offseason and home stretch for basketball!