http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5474774

Trying to make up for the potential BYU loss while dooming the WAC.

Very smart move on the Mountain West's part. It will be interesting to see if Boise State and TCU are enough to lure these schools to join the conference. For Nevada it seems like a no brainer, but I could see some opposition at Fresno State.

It all depends on if Fresno wants to stay up there and rule a weaker WAC, or move with the teams that give them the good competition. There's positives to both.

So this will give the mountain west 10 teams?

Just saw on CBS college sports channel that both teams have accepted the invites. What a crazy day out of no where.

WAC = dead?

WAC = MAC

It'll be interesting to see what happens with BYU now since they haven't officially left the conference yet, and since it sounded like they would be moving to the WAC for everything but football. This certainly isn't going to be the end of this because the rest of the WAC schools are going to have to figure out what to do and there really isn't anyone else they could pull in except maybe some CUSA teams. Who knows, this may somehow end up leading to the Big XII crumbling like everyone knows it eventually will.

Definitely will be interesting to see if BYU still goes WAC for non-football stuff. Apparently the WCC was making overtures to them regarding their sport memberships too. Maybe they stay put and look for a 12th team?

ts1227;455743 wrote:Definitely will be interesting to see if BYU still goes WAC for non-football stuff. Apparently the WCC was making overtures to them regarding their sport memberships too. Maybe they stay put and look for a 12th team?

WCC?

West Coast Conference (Gonzaga and stuff)... they don't even field football in the conference.

I don't see how BYU goes that way at all, but the WCC asked them at least.

sjmvsfscs08;455704 wrote:WAC = MAC

Didn't Whitney Houston say that? No, wait...

Has anyone found when they will join the MWC?

Needless to say, the WAC Commish is PISSED

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5477045

God gawd, whats next....Louisiana Tech to the Sun Belt? Or the Big East?

Does this put the Mt.West on par with the Big East? It's probably a little better if BYU stays. I would say this pretty much ends the WAC.

Look at the comparisons:

Cincinnati, Rutgers, Pittsburgh vs. Boise State, TCU, BYU (if they don't leave)
Connecticut, South Florida vs. Wyoming, Fresno State, Air Force
Louisville, West Virginia vs. Colorado State, San Diego State, UNLV
Syracuse vs. Nevada, New Mexico

I'd take BSU/TCU/BYU in the first, Wyoming, FSU, CSU in the second. But, the Big East has more depth, UL/WVU and Syracuse are better than their roughly equivalent teams across the aisle. You can make arguments to move up or down teams on the Big East side because there's really not a huge difference from the very best to everyone just above Syracuse. The MWC has a big difference between their upper echelon teams (with BSU joining and Utah leaving) and their bottom half (CSU can be good, but SDSU and UNLV have regularly been bottom-feeders in the MWC).

I'd say MWC definitely deserves some major consideration if BYU stays in the league. Lose Utah and BYU and the MWC is a two-horse race with maybe a Wyoming, FSU, or AFA nipping at their heels most years and the occasional surprise from the bottom half.

TheMightyGators;456329 wrote:Does this put the Mt.West on par with the Big East? It's probably a little better if BYU stays. I would say this pretty much ends the WAC.

With adding these two teams and if they keep BYU (which at this point it sounds like that is going to happen) it gives the MWC 12 teams and it will allow them to meet all the criteria for being a BCS automatic qualifying conference. It won't happen until the current BCS contract is up in 4 years though.

The whole idea of the mwc was to take the best teams from the wac and eventually get bcs eligibility. They have wanted it since they were created.

krambman;456524 wrote:With adding these two teams and if they keep BYU (which at this point it sounds like that is going to happen) it gives the MWC 12 teams and it will allow them to meet all the criteria for being a BCS automatic qualifying conference. It won't happen until the current BCS contract is up in 4 years though.

Doesn't this just give them 11 teams, if BYU stays? Or am I missing someone?
BYU, Boise St, Fresno St, Nevada, UNLV, Wyoming, AFA, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU

If they only have 11 teams, who do you think they will want to go after? If Utah had stayed, i think there is no question that deserve to be a BCS conference. As they stand now, i think they need to make a splash, or at least add another quality team into the mix, maybe Houston?

I'm really interested in what the WAC will do next. As it stands the conference will have six teams next year: Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Jose State and Utah State. I-A/FBS conferences must field at least eight teams, meaning the WAC is basically forced to expand or die.

They're not going to poach any teams out of the C-USA (which has 12, has a title game, and relatively tame travel. Only the MWC could snag a C-USA team at this point, such as Houston). WAC would have to go slumming into the Sun Belt or convince non-FBS teams to jump up to join as a quasi-FBS league. Which spells disaster for the WAC, no matter what.

Only contender from the Sun Belt, is honestly, North Texas, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana-Lafayette, or maybe Arkansas State or Middle Tennessee.

Now, from the FCS, they could attempt to lure Big Sky or Great West teams up.

Such as Montana, Montana State, Eastern Washington, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Weber State, Portland State, Idaho State or Sacramento State. Or, North Dakota, South Dakota, Southern Utah, Cal-Poly, or UC-Davis (from the Great West). North Dakota State or South Dakota State from the MVC. Or, Texas State or McNeese State from the Southland.

Either way, it doesn't look good for the WAC to be falling to Sun Belt level.

And now Hawaii is looking into going independent. Also, some of the potential FCS teams being mentioned don't meet the eligibility requirements for FBS at the moment. It's looking more and more like bye bye for the WAC.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=tsn-166084

Fuck BYU

Would the winner of an MWC vs. CUSA championship deserve an automatic BCS berth? If the talk about adding the Cotton Bowl to the BCS ever comes to fruition, this wouldn't be such a bad compromise.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=ap-mwc-cusatalks