But while the move is intended to bring stability to the 41-year-old conference and offset the expected departures of Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulsa in 2005, it might not be enough to placate the University of Hawai'i, a WAC member since 1979.

Anticipating the additions, UH president Evan Dobelle told The Advertiser on Wednesday: "I've always been on the record since the week I got here that I felt the Mountain West was the best conference for us."

The Mountain West, which is composed of eight schools that seceded from the WAC in 1999, has contacted Dobelle to gauge UH's interest. The Mountain West is considering expansion.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson insisted the reconfigured conference will have as much to offer as the Mountain West.

While it was expected the WAC would raid the Sun Belt Conference for members, the timing of the invitations was puzzling. UH athletic director Herman Frazier was among WAC officials surprised when Rice, SMU and Tulsa announced their planned defections to Conference USA last week. It was widely believed the three schools would wait until Nov. 4, when the Big East would decide how many schools it would invite from Conference USA.

Instead of waiting, the WAC's Board of Directors, made up of presidents and chancellors of the 10 member schools, unanimously voted Wednesday to immediately extend invitations to New Mexico State and Utah State. The two had not received any inquiries from other conferences.

"Why prolong this?" Benson said during yesterday's hour-long teleconference.

Benson said the new WAC members have strong academic and athletic reputations.

They also give the WAC nine members for 2005-06, fulfilling the Division I-A minimum requirement of eight football teams and providing a cushion should a school defect.

But the moves also create a geographical imbalance. In 2005-06, the WAC will have three schools (Fresno State, Nevada, San Jose State) in the Pacific time zone and four (Boise State, New Mexico, Texas-El Paso, Utah State) in the Mountain zone. A week after planning to add three schools from the Central time zone to create two six-team divisions, the WAC soon will have only Louisiana Tech in that region.

Benson said New Mexico State and Utah State agreed to a buy-in plan similar to the one assessed to Nevada in 2000 and Boise State and Louisiana Tech in 2001. Benson would not disclose terms of the arrangement, but it was believed Nevada, Boise State and Louisiana Tech agreed not to accept a full share of the $500,000 to $600,000 each school receives from the conference annually.