Tom Sadler, UH associate athletic director, said through a spokesman that, "We have not contacted the Mountain West."

Athletic director Herman Frazier, who was out of town and not immediately available for comment, has consistently maintained since last year that he has not discussed membership with the MWC, either contacting the conference or being approached by it.

MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said he has been contacted by six schools since the conference lifted its moratorium on expansion in June, but has refused to disclose who they are.

"He (Thompson) won't say which ones they are because it is our policy not to talk about individual institutions," Javan Hedlund, MWC director of communications, told The Advertiser.

However, speculation at MWC Media Day this week is that the six schools are Hawai'i, Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, Texas Christian and Tulane, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The MWC is composed of eight schools (Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming) that broke away from the Western Athletic Conference after the 1998 season.

When the MWC lifted its four-year moratorium on expansion, it said it would study new members that could expand its membership by "zero to four" as early as the 2005 season.

The MWC has formed a three-member committee of two presidents and an athletic director to study "benchmarks" for evaluating prospective members, Thompson said. The committee is scheduled to meet in September and could make a recommendation to the Board of Directors as early as the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Nevada athletic director Chris Ault said the Wolfpack has had informal discussions with the MWC, the Review-Journal reported.

In a move interpreted by many as a declaration of interest in the MWC, Fresno State announced last week it will no longer accept academic non-qualifiers after this year. The MWC last year passed a rule against its members accepting non-qualifiers.