RIVERSIDE — Assuming the reports are accurate – and that seems to still be a large assumption at this point – come the fall of 2026 the Crosstown Showdown opportunities between UC Riverside and California Baptist could be more plentiful, and perhaps more contentious.
Right now the athletic programs separated by nine freeway miles face each other annually in nonconference play, once a season in most sports, one series a year in baseball and softball. But according to published social media posts, CBU and Utah Valley University, located in Orem, Utah, received invitations – and CBU has accepted – to join the Big West for the 2026-27 school year and flee the sinking ship known as the Western Athletic Conference.
Or maybe not. There has been no announcement from the school or the conference, and the longer the wait the more you wonder.
The rumblings began as early as Feb. 6 when Matt Brown, who publishes the “Extra Points” website about the business of college athletics, reported he had heard that the Big West was targeting CBU and Utah Valley.
Two and a half weeks later, on Feb. 24, Brett McMurphy, a longtime college sports reporter with ESPN and others and currently with Action Network – a website primarily devoted to odds and betting information – reported on social media platforms X and Bluesky that the Big West had scheduled a vote on whether to add CBU and Utah Valley on Feb. 28. Six days later, in another post on both social media sites, McMurphy reported that CBU had accepted the invitation and would pay a $1.2 million entry fee to the conference, but there had been no indication of a decision from Utah Valley.
To date, there have been no other reports backing up McMurphy’s posts with independent reporting. CBU vice president of athletics Micah Parker texted a response Wednesday afternoon from Las Vegas and the WAC postseason tournament: “I don’t have any news for you, Jim, but will call if/when I do.”
And Monday, Big West commissioner Dan Butterly posted this on his conference’s website: “Contrary to a media report put forth by ‘America’s College Football Insider with Action Network’ (McMurphy), no institution has officially accepted an invitation to join The Big West in 2026.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen.
Butterly, in a podcast interview last week with CSUN (and former UCR) play-by-play broadcaster Ghizal Hasan, outlined his vision for replacing departing members UC Davis and Hawaii, who will join the Mountain West (Hawaii’s other sports joining its football program in the MWC) in 2026. While Butterly took pains to not mention any schools specifically, he suggested that the conference might not stop at adding two programs.
“Like any good athletic director, you know when a coach departs … you’ve always got three to five coaches in your pocket that you want to look at to fill those shoes as an athletic director,” he said. “And it’s the same as a conference commissioner with member institutions – if an institution were to depart you have institutions that you may have interest in pursuing.
“… We may go beyond 11 at this point. … You got to look at the future of NCAA Division I athletics. You got to look at the footprint that we’re in and you also want to get stronger, get better if at all possible.”
And, Butterly added, “a lot of institutions” have expressed interest in joining the conference.
The WAC, once a sprawling conference with a footprint from Honolulu to Ruston, Louisiana, has undergone a number of different configurations in the years since, and is currently at nine teams and about to shrink further.
Seattle and Grand Canyon – the latter a long time archrival of CBU, dating to when both were NAIA schools – both announced in May of 2024 that they would move to the West Coast Conference in time for the 2025-26 academic year. That changed last fall. On Oct. 1, Gonzaga committed to the reconstituted Pac-12 in 2026. On Nov. 1, Grand Canyon accepted an invitation to join the Mountain West no later than July 1, 2026, the same date UC Davis joins the conference.
The crazy thing in all of this, really, is that CBU could land in the Big West rather than the WCC, which seemed all along to be a far more natural destination.
When CBU announced its intention to move its programs to Division I in 2017, it was welcomed into the WAC in a joyous on-campus news conference. School officials were firm at the time that the WAC was the place to be, but what else could they say?
I pointed out at the time that when the school moved from NAIA competition to NCAA Division II in 2010, they were equally firm that they’d be staying a while. But it was pretty obvious from that point that CBU was taking steps to eventually go Division I. And when they did, I was convinced the WAC would be just a stop en route to the WCC, then as now a group of similarly sized and aligned faith-based schools.
With Gonzaga about to leave after being that conference’s big dog in men’s basketball for the better part of 2½ decades – and, now, with Grand Canyon out of the way as well – the WCC certainly seemed to be the next move, and the logical one. Instead, if these reports turn out to be accurate, CBU would be the only faith-based school in a secular conference dominated by UC and Cal State institutions.
Then again, as wacky as college athletics has become, who’s to say for sure that CBU isn’t pondering competing offers from both conferences?
Either way, the program would fit in athletically, bringing with it probably the best arena in either conference and a broad-based program of 19 sports. (And who knows? Joining the Big West could even prompt CBU to bring back men’s volleyball, a sport that the conference sponsors and one in which the Lancers were competitive – as a Division II team playing in the Division I Mountain Pacific Sports Federation – before the sport was dropped in 2017 to help facilitate the Division I transition.)
And in the hometown CBU shares with UCR, what has become a serious competition away from the courts and fields of competition would take a dramatic leap in intensity both in the standings and on the business side.
Anyone who has attended games at both CBU’s Fowler Events Center and UCR’s Student Recreation Center arena can tell the difference immediately. CBU’s facility is newer and bigger (5,050 capacity compared to UCR’s 3,168), and it has had a visible edge in sponsor and donor support since the schools became Division I peers.
UCR had a 17-year head start in Division I and, as chancellors, athletic directors and staff came and went, never really made an impact in the surrounding community. Now it’s playing from behind.
If the teams are indeed fated to share a conference, the stakes will be even higher.
jalexander@scng.com
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