No way UCLA, Cal, etc. allow a San Diego State or Fresno State into the league. Colorado would probably veto Colorado State (not sure about this -- you all know the politics better than I do). Boise is a glorified community college, again Cal, Stanford, etc. would say hell no. UNLV is in the same boat.
I think it takes a unanimous vote to allow new members in, so the hurdles will be very high to go to 16. Only a few schools would be able to go over those hurdles.
At the end of the day I hope we stick at 12 for as long as feasible (i.e. no other conference expands to force our hand).
Stanford's approval is still the biggest hurdle to getting new schools into the Pac12 still IMO due to the unanimous vote require. And yes SDSU, UNLV, CSU, ect would not at this point pass any test involving Cal, Stanford, and UCLA administration, and I might throw USC in there since they are at least on the rise as a reputable university and their athletic side is very worried about the conference (and conference $$) being diluted too much. Another thing is that there is basically no way expansion takes place unless the old Pac 8 is a division. CA schools want to stay together and the NW schools are not happy about losing yearly games in LA.
one exception to the above statement is if four 16 team super conferences becomes some kind of requirement for a 4 team football playoff (with the CCG being a pseudo 1st round). If that's not happening, let's please stay at 12.
Does New Mexico bring enough revenue to offset having another hand in the cookie jar?
The same argument was made against CU and UU. If the move to 16 were to bring in significant benefits above and beyond a 12 team league, adding a school like UNM might make the league rich enough to expand everyone's despite the new teams bringing smaller markets to the table. That's exactly what happen with CU and
especially UU joining the pac 10. I hate to start that argument since CU and UU have been crapped on a lot by some in CA and the NW (especially Jon Wilner) for not bringing enough to the table in terms of market share. The problem is that unless Texas is involved, any possible expansion target would have and still will dilute the pac whatever due to CA's size. But as we just saw, even though we reduced the average # of households per school with the expansion, money per school went up... a lot.
Again, I don't see pac 12 members looking to go to 16 unless it's required to get a playoff going. If that does happen, there's no guarantee texas would go west - maybe they can build the b12 into one of the 4 super conferences and let the ACC and Big East get poached. So the Pac would have to react somehow to go to 16. Who knows if 4 super conferences and auto bids to a 4 team playoff wouldn't draw the same scrutiny as the BCS in terms of teams left out and their congressmen looking for anti-trust violations.
If there is no strong $$$$$ reason to go to 16 w/o texas, schools like UNM, or anyone in the MWC, won't happen. Ever.
I actually think that UNM and BYU might be good additions to the B12 if that ever happens. B12 doesn't need anyone else in Texas because it owns that market, and more fodder for obliteration that is geographically close makes sense. Arkansas is not leaving the SEC, so not many other choices.