Two conferences that have been gutted by BCS conference realignment and expansion, the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA, are merging and they may be adding teams from even less promising conferences, continuing an endless progression that will likely lead to Yale's inclusion in the WAC.
The big news came down earlier Monday that the two conferences will be merging, and hoping to expand to form an 18-24 team legion of teams that will play a semifinal before a conference football championship game, which sounds pretty awesome. The schools the new conference may have its eye on are truly coast to coast, according to UTEP President Diana Natalicio (from UTEP student paper, The Prospector):
Natalicio said the additional schools to comprise the 18-24-team conference have not been discussed but she said that Utah State (currently in the WAC) and Florida International (Sun Belt) have been discussed. UTEP Athletic Director also said that New Mexico State (WAC) is also on their list of possible candidates.
Nothing has been made official regarding the new teams, but a university president dropping their names has to make you feel like this isn't the first Utah State, FIU and NMSU have heard about this.
For more new on the MWC-CUSA merger, visit Mountain West Connection or check out this storystream.
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People are really jumping on Natalicio's words
But, if you heard the press conference, she was just tossing names out there, and not saying anything more than they could possibly be looked at. As far as the NMSU thing goes, you have to realize media from El Paso and Las Cruces were at the presser and of course they want to know if “little brother” can go too. NMSU is clearly a second tier candidate, and Natalicio had already expressed that basically they don’t bring anything to the table market wise. Anyway, I think expansion will go east first, in order to switch UTEP over to the West. So likely Temple (Football only) who was apparently represented at the meetings in Dallas, FIU, or La Tech, first, and then possibly Utah St.
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by asalom on Feb 14, 2012 12:09 PM EST reply actions
true
But why name names then if they are just being tossed out there.
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by Jeremy Mauss on Feb 14, 2012 4:31 PM EST up reply actions
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