HONOLULU — As conference alignment chaos continues to swirl in power college football, the smaller FBS Group of Five leagues like the Mountain West Conference anxiously stand by.

The future of the Pac-12 Conference is in doubt amid national reports that Oregon and Washington are finalizing membership applications to the Big Ten Conference. Meanwhile, Arizona, Utah and Arizona State have applied for Big 12 membership. [Update: All five were officially voted into their new conferences later Friday.]

Speculation has been rampant how the Mountain West could be affected — if it will add the remnant schools of the Pac-12, if the Pac-12 would pluck some of the best MWC institutions as replacements or if some kind of merger between the Pac-12 and MWC is imminent.

UCLA and USC were already slated to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024. Colorado, another Pac-12 deserter, was welcomed back into the Big 12 this week.

The MWC is the only other FBS conference based in the Western U.S. Hawaii is a football-only member of the 12-team MWC and pays travel subsidies for opponents to come to the islands to play conference games.

Amid the realignment noise, the Hawaii football team went about its usual business at Friday morning’s team practice at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex as a youth football team and parents took in the action from the sideline.

Second-year head coach Timmy Chang was asked by Spectrum News about his thoughts on the Mountain West amid the controversy.

“I love our Mountain West Conference. We believe we’re the best Group of Five conference,” Chang said. “There’s some competitive football week in and week out in our conference with some great players and great coaches. Every time I go to a Mountain West meeting and I see those guys, it just reminds me of how high of a standard it is.

“However this thing shakes out, I feel comfortable about where we are as a conference and a group.”

Per national reports from Action Network’s Brett McMurphy and ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford and Cal are said to be the Pac-12 schools in danger of being left behind.

Just weeks ago, San Diego State of the Mountain West was openly pining for Pac-12 membership but was welcomed back into the MWC fold.

When Chang was initially asked about the realignment hubbub, he said, “I just briefly kind of saw it. I don’t really know too much about it and it’s a little bit out of my control. What we can control is we’ve got three Power Five opponents (this season) with Vanderbilt, Stanford and Oregon.”

UH opens at Vanderbilt on Aug. 26 and Stanford is UH’s home opener on Sept. 1.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.