WAC teams, minus NMSU, appear to be on the move

Welcome to the Mountain West Conference, San Jose State and Utah State.

Unless, of course, Boise State and San Diego State decide to come back and there’s no more room.

And will the last football team in the Western Athletic Conference (New Mexico State?) turn off the lights?

Last week, the presidents of schools from the Mountain West and Conference USA met to discuss the future of the leagues, and the possibility of forming a coalition of some sort.

UNM president David Schmidly said both San Jose State and Utah State were “schools that have been talked about being added to the Mountain West, but I don’t know anything about the commissioner’s conversation with them or the schools level of interest at this point. I haven’t talked to the commissioner about it yet.”

“It’s a presidential decision,” said Javan Hedlund, the MWC associate commissioner of communications, “and nothing has been confirmed as of yet.”

Utah State athletic director Scott Barnes told The Salt Lake Tribune that “things have progressed.”

Meanwhile, Conference USA reportedly is poised to grab Louisiana Tech and Texas San Antonio from the WAC. Texas State may be looking at the Sun Belt Conference.

That would leave New Mexico State and Idaho to carry the WAC banner.

The MWC in 2013 could look like this: New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii (football only), Nevada, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State and Wyoming.

However, CBSSports.com is reporting that Boise State and San Diego State are waiting to see what kind of media rights package the Big East will come up with, and may consider remaining with the MWC.

All this is part of the back drop as the MWC and C-USA try to negotiate television contracts.
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal