If you look at the NDSU move, the time was right for them while their stock is still up. They led the pack for a decade, but there are indications there that they were about to be back in the field again with one championship in the last four years and one and done in the 2025 playoffs.
They spent a long time dreaming that the Big 10 was going to give them a call and invite them over, so even a watered-down Mountain West offer is still decent consolation. Then factor in how much it makes them look even better that Sac couldn't get in, even with the money they were offering to join the club.
At this stage, I am only convinced that joining the MAC (for football only at that) does not qualify as getting out of the JV. The verdict is still out if the new look MWC, better than the MAC team for team, but hardly a lot of big-time college football there when your best team is probably UNLV, who is a captive because of Nevada.
Without seeing their schedules they end up with, I feel that NDSU gets into a bowl game as a fill-in because there are just too many games these days and they will need to put them into one. Sac State needs six D-I wins to qualify for the same thing, so they are going to have to drop a lot of the games they have scheduled, you can only use one FCS win toward the six bowl eligible wins. With 7 FCS games on the schedule, I would imagine that they are going to owe cancellation money to a bunch of schools as well. If they won 7 in their last year in the Big Sky, they will have a rough time putting together 3 or 4 wins with all the travel ahead of them in 2026.