While the Mountain West will lose conference stalwarts Utah and BYU after this season, they will add Boise State, Nevada and Fresno State in the next two years. Now, apparently, the league is further buttressing the football portion of the sports program yet again.
Unless this is just a preemptive strike to soften the loss of another MWC power, of course.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaii has been extended an offer to join the Mountain West as a football-only member. All of their other sports would then move to the Big West conference.
A 7 p.m. local time (midnight ET, if my math is correct) press conference has been scheduled by the school, presumably to announce they have accepted the invite and will cut ties to a conference that go back 32 years. The reported move from the WAC to the MWC would come after the 2011-2012 school year, which would coincide with Nevada and Fresno State bolting the same conference. And could run parallel with the final nail being driven into the pillaged league’s coffin.
Just last week, the WAC announced the additions of the University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas State; those schools are not expected to move into the conference until the 2012 football season. That’s, of course, provided there even is a conference.
Once all of the dust settles on these moves, it will leave the WAC with just seven schools: the two new additions, plus Louisiana Tech, Utah State, Idaho, New Mexico State and San Jose State. There’s also the chance that a school like North Texas could become of interest to the WAC.
Regardless of whatever other band-aids the conference attempts to put on its gaping wounds, here’s the only fact you need to know: the top four schools in the conference this season are the four schools that are bolting in no more than two years. In other words...
The WAC was on life support before today began. Hawaii may have just pulled the plug on its way out the door.