It was earlier this year when it was widely assumed that the Western Athletic Conference was done. Louisiana Tech and University of Texas-San Antonio are leaving for Conference USA. San Jose State and Utah State are leaving for the Mountain West. Texas-Arlington and Texas State are leaving for the Sun Belt Conference. Idaho is leaving for the Big Sky conference. Affiliate member, Denver University is leaving for the Summit League. That is 8 schools out of a 10 school league. The death of the WAC after 50 years was at hand, or everybody thought it was.
Instead, the WAC has remade itself. No longer will football be played within the conference. And 6 other schools will be joining the league.
- California State University, Bakersfield
- Utah Valley University
- Grand Canyon University
- University of Texas-Pan American
- Chicago State University
- University of Missouri-Kansas City
This conference will be the Big East non-football schools of the west. As football becomes the king of everything at the large schools, the WAC and the 7 basketball schools in the east are going to be utilizing their resources for basketball and other sports such as soccer. And it will be that way for more and more schools as the cost/reward for having Division I schools having football becomes more and more skewed. Eventually, we will have 4 major conferences of 16 teams and two minor conferences of 16 teams for a total of 96 football teams in college football. So take a look at the WAC, it will become more and more common.
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