Following 25 years of play in the Big West Conference, Cal Poly Men’s Soccer will transition into a new era of the program and join the Pac-12 Conference as an associate member beginning in the 2026 fall season, according to a news release made by Cal Poly Athletics on March 30.
The collaborative partnership between the Big West and the Pac-12 conferences was announced earlier this week, with men’s soccer being the only sport affected by the collaboration. Alongside Cal Poly, UC Riverside and UC San Diego will make the leap from the Big West and join the Pac-12 as associate members.
California Baptist, who will enter the Big West as a full member beginning during the 2026-2027 season, will also join the Pac-12 as an associate member.
The four schools will compete alongside Oregon State, San Diego State and Gonzaga.
The schedule for the Pac-12’s upcoming season will consist of six conference matches, with the top four programs qualifying for the Pac-12 Tournament. Cal Poly’s schedule for the fall season will be revealed later this spring.
With the shift, Cal Poly Head Coach Oige Kennedy will be making his return to the Pac-12 Conference, having served as the associate head coach for Stanford from 2016-2022.
“This transition presents a new and demanding challenge with some top programs on our schedule for 2026,” Kennedy said in the release. “It will require growth, resilience and a relentless competitive edge – all qualities that our group is eager to embrace.”
With the four schools taking their leave, the Big West is currently composed of Cal State Bakersfield, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, Sacramento State, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara and Utah Valley.
Utah Valley joins the Big West Conference as a full member for the 2026-2027 season, after having been a part of the Western Athletic Conference since 2013.
As a part of the collaboration, both conferences will implement a scheduling partnership that will allow crossover matches between schools of both conferences to take place. The matches will not affect a team’s points or standings in either conference.
In addition, Cal Poly’s Blue-Green rivalry series with UC Santa Barbara remains unaffected. The two schools will continue to face each other in the upcoming 2026-2027 season, with two non-conference matches scheduled throughout the season. In regards to location, the Mustangs and the Gauchos will split the series between each campus’ respective stadiums.
With the move to the Pac-12 Conference, Cal Poly Men’s Soccer will join wrestling as the only Cal Poly programs to compete within the Pac-12.
The news of the shift from the Big West comes following the best two-year stretch Cal Poly has ever had within the conference in program history, having claimed back-to-back Big West regular season titles in 2024 and 2025. Cal Poly had a combined record of 9-3-6 in conference play during that span.
In both of those years, the Mustangs reached the semifinals of the Big West tournament.
They will look to continue their strong run of conference play against a new slate of opponents starting in the fall.