The Washington State Cougars are one of college football’s most remote major teams. They play in Pullman, Wash.—population a hair under 33,000—in a rural region of eastern Washington known as the Palouse.

But it won’t be until next year—when 10 other members of its Pac-12 Conference flee for greener pastures in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conferences—that the Cougars are really headed for the wilderness of college athletics.