Jackrabbit wrestling moving to Pac-12 next season

BROOKINGS – South Dakota State announced on Thursday that its wrestling team will be moving from the Big 12 Conference to the Pac-12 Conference starting with the 2026-27 school year.

The Jackrabbits join North Dakota State, Air Force, Northern Colorado and Northern Illinois as affiliate members of the Pac-12 for the 2026-27 season. SDSU, NDSU, Northern Colorado and Air Force all come from the Big 12 and NIU was named as an affiliate member in October.

The other teams in the Pac-12 include Cal Poly, Oregon State, Little Rock and Cal State Bakersfield. The nine schools is the most the Pac-12 has had since the 2008-09 season.
SDSU had competed in the Big 12 since 2015 and Jackrabbit head coach Damion Hahn said he is excited for the change.

“I’ll be honest, I’m super excited. You know, anytime you have change, there’s some things that come with that. Whether it be uncertainty or some difficulty. For me, it’s really exciting for our program and exciting for the sport of wrestling and exciting for our guys,” Hahn said.

Hahn said this conference switch has been in the works and a lot of it began when the NCAA and The House settled in June of 2025.

“There were some talks,” Hahn said. “You know, this kind of started in this sense of conference realignments, probably right around the time of the house settlement deal. That’s when you saw a bunch of different programs and universities and other sports, you know, with conference realignment.

“That was when there were some inquiries though our sport and conferences and when some of the talks started and it was kind of like initial and gathering of information. I’ll be honest, the Pac-12 kind of came after the schools that ended up heading over from the Big 12.”

In the 2025-26 season, the Big 12 had 14 teams. Those teams included the four teams that will make the move to the Pac-12, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Arizona State, Missouri, West Virginia, Wyoming, Northern Iowa, Utah Valley and Cal Baptist. Cal Baptist will no longer be in the Big 12 as well and the conference will now have nine teams.

Hahn said there are plenty of benefits of making this move, with one of them being that SDSU can now host a conference tournament.

“The schools that are reforming the Pac-12, they are very similar profile type schools, which is nice. I think one of the big things is being able to host a conference championship. I don’t know if people kind of take it for granted, but it’s a big deal,” Hahn said.

The Big 12 Championships have been held at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla., since 2017. Hahn said that was tough for SDSU because the crowd was a majority of Oklahoma State fans and the Cowboys have won two-straight conference championships and 57 conference titles overall.

The Pac-12 has had its conference championships rotate at campus sites and it looks as though that will continue to be the format with the nine teams. Hahn said he’s seen what having a conference tournament in Brookings can do for your team as SDSU soccer, softball and volleyball have hosted the Summit League Championships before.

“You look at a lot of our other sports here at South Dakota State, they’ve had the ability to host,” Hahn said.

“In the big 12, we’ve never had that option, and I don’t know if any of the schools [in that conference] will ever have that option. It’s held in Tulsa every year and you might as well have it in Stillwater because it’s a home field advantage.

“Having it rotate in the ability to host, I would love to host the conference championship here in Brookings. You know, to have our fans, you can’t put a price tag on that and having it be able to rotate I think is great for our student athletes to have that experience. That was a big drive and one of the big drivers for me.”

The NCAA has a requirement that a conference must have at least six members for the sport in order to retain NCAA automatic qualifications for its annual league champions.

Meaning that the league champions will automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships.

Hahn said that is a big deal, along with being able to have some confidence going into the national tournament.

“One of the big things that is super important is the conference championship. If you’re a conference champ, that helps you in your seeding criteria. Not to say that we can’t win a Big 12 title, because we’ve won a number of individual titles, but having the ability to have more is ultimately going to help our guys in the national tournament. … I coached in the Ivy League and I saw how our guys [gained confidence] towards the end of the year and the postseason. You want to go into the national tournament feeling good,” Hahn said.

Like other sports, SDSU and NDSU have developed a rivalry in wrestling. The two teams play for the Border Bell and the Bison beat the

Jackrabbits 20-13 this past season.
Hahn said he likes that SDSU and NDSU will be in the same conference in wrestling, unlike football where the Bison will make the move to the FBS this upcoming season.

“I was under the impression that SDSU and NDSU do things together on the moves and decisions that are being made,” Hahn said. “So, when this process started [NDSU head coach Obenson Blanc] and I were kind of on the same page. We both agreed that this made sense for us.

“Now, if it didn’t happen and one of us stayed and one of us left, we were still going to have a rival. We were still going to wrestle each other because in wrestling there’s only 80 teams. It’s not like other sports where if a team moves to a different conference, we don’t need to play them anymore. Wrestling doesn’t have enough teams.”

Wrestling in the Big 12, the Jackrabbits were able to host some of the premier programs in the country, like Oklahoma State. That has led to big crowds and an excitement around the program.

Hahn said that this conference move will not eliminate good home matchups. He thinks the Jacks’ schedule will still be able to schedule major programs along with wrestling against every team in the Pac-12.

“We don’t have an issue being able to get, you know, some of those power five teams to compete against us. We’re still going to do that. Now, you know, moving over into the Pac-12, there are currently nine teams.

We will have four home, four away, and then we will be able to schedule some of those power five teams around that. So, that’s really exciting.

We can get a little bit more strategic with our schedule and our training for getting ready for March,” Hahn said.