Expansion will focus on quality, not just quantity

"We live every day with the horror of the 16-team WAC."

— Bernie Machen, then president of the University of Utah, in June 2003 about the Mountain West Conference's reluctance to jump into expansion.

Second in a two-part series

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Once considered in the "lost" Mountain time zone, the Mountain West Conference has come to appreciate its relative isolation.

"We're not in a position where we have to do anything right now," said Craig Thompson, MWC commissioner.

Moreover, when all the dust clears from everybody else slugging it out, the MWC is positioned to become the best of the non-Bowl Championship Series conferences.

It is the opportunity to enhance that standing that is expected to finally move the MWC to expand beyond its founding eight members for the first time in its five-year history.

Speculation is that once the next row of dominoes falls with tomorrow's expected announcement of Big East changes, the MWC will start moving in earnest toward taking on new membership in as little as a month.

While Hawai'i, Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, Texas-El Paso and Texas Christian wait, word is that commissioner Craig Thompson has the backing for at least a ninth member with the possibility of a 10th.

"It could be one, two, four — or even none at all," Thompson has said. "We're not in a position where we have to do anything right now."

Indeed, the MWC "is one of the few conferences that is in control of its own destiny," said Chuck Neinas, a former commissioner of the Big Eight and director of the College Football Association, who heads a consulting firm. "They have stability and room for growth on their own terms."

Eight was enough

That is what the eight original schools — Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming — intended when they broke away from the 16-team Western Athletic Conference after the 1998 athletic year.

They left after three years as members of the nation's biggest I-A conference saying they were weighed down by teams that weren't pulling their own weight. With them, they took a seven-year, $49 million ABC/ESPN television contract that had been negotiated on behalf of the WAC.

Concerns about what the new contract might bring in 2007 — and there are rumors of as little as 50 cents on the dollar — have so far kept the MWC wary of adding more members to shrink their shares of the pie.

While not revealing details of the TV situation, Thompson said, "The presidents are concerned about what new members would bring to the conference. They want to be sure there is value to whatever decision they make."

Conference officials have refused to discuss the merits of prospective candidates, and two weeks ago the MWC slapped a gag on conference athletic directors. Yet, others around the conference, in the industry and television, provide some outlines of official thinking.

TCU the top choice

The word is that TCU, a member of the 16-team WAC that has since moved to Conference USA, is the No. 1 choice of MWC athletic directors. But it is the presidents who vote and it remains to be seen if an invitation could entice TCU to leave a CUSA Western Division, called Southwest Conference lite, built around Texas and gulf schools.

It isn't hard to see, however, what the Horned Frogs would bring. In addition to a Top 25 football team, TCU would give the MWC a foothold in the Dallas-Fort Worth TV market, the nation's seventh largest. What's more, New Mexico, Air Force and Colorado State all get a significant percentage of football recruits from the state of Texas.

Boise may be next best

Should TCU pass or the MWC decide to add a second school, Boise is viewed by some as a "safe" choice since the Broncos are in the Mountain time zone, have a burgeoning football program and are well known to the MWC even if their overall program is lacking.

UH brings the most goodies: an extra game in basketball and football because of the NCAA exemption, a bowl tie-in and well-rounded sports program. Additionally, BYU and Utah have in the past found the state a fertile recruiting ground. But UH also has the most significant baggage in the 2,500 to 3,500 miles and attendant costs that separate it from the MWC membership.

When UH joined the WAC in 1979, the school agreed to subsidize members' travel from the West Coast, a bill that amounted to about $250,000 for men's teams (the Rainbow Wahine were in the Big West) when the practice was ended in 1996 following the expansion of the WAC.

The dropping of subsidies, MWC members have said, was a major reason UH was not invited into the cabal that broke away from the WAC.

Fresno has fan base

Like Hawai'i, Fresno State has both significant up and down sides. The Bulldogs are a so-called 40-and-15 program, averaging 40,000 attendance in football and, with the opening of the new 16,000-seat SaveMart Center for basketball this month, the potential for 15,000 a game there.

But NCAA problems and a history of accepting partial-qualifiers (to be phased out beginning next year) have made MWC members wary.

UTEP and Nevada are viewed as long shots, bringing little to the equation.

Said an official of another conference, "The MWC presidents have a heck of an opportunity to enhance their standing; it will be interesting to see if they can get together and take full advantage of it."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.