Thats Right, a MWC/C-USA Post…

Because that’s how I roll.

I think this will be interesting to many of the readers here because I’m talking about schools we played just last year.

In case you haven’t seen, what is left of the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA are about to merge.  What is interesting about this is this group won’t be all that far from the SuperWAC formed in 1996.  People bashed the SuperWAC but it turns out it was just ahead of its time.  Which is par for the course with teams from the WAC.

The school that was the driving force behind the formation of the WAC was Oregon along with Utah and some others.  Five schools from the old Pacific Conference had just dumped the Oregon schools and Washington St., to go out on their own.  The founders of the WAC essentially conceived of the first athletic conference built around the idea of television.  There were several rules about who would get in such as proximity to an airport and big or growing cities.  Wyoming and BYU were both nearly left out.  Essentially the friendships of their presidents to Utah President A. Ray Olpin carried the day.

At the end of the day, the Pac schools figured out that 5 schools could not make a conference.  So the Oregon schools and Wazzu never became part of the WAC.

The SuperWAC was formed essentially out of desperation with teams trying to just survive the changing college sports landscape.  Schools like Rice and San Jose St., were included simply because of TV markets.  People called it foolish, turns out it was just a Sign O The Times.

So, here comes the SuperWAC part Deux.  Good Luck guys, because there but for the grace of God could be Utah.

Additional Note: The MWC/CUSA will have 18-24 teams and have semi-finals and finals in their football title games.  Fascinating.