BYU Leaving the Mountain West?

[tornado]

They will stay in the Mountain West for football & basketball this year but then go to the WAC the following year for all other sports and be independent for football so as not to have to share $$ with the many far weaker Mountain West (or WAC) football programs
-- yet another odd/unexpected (not totally) move purely for the economic reasons..

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/cougars/50131959-88/byu-football-wac-mountain.html.csp

[amckillip]

The MWC quickly went from flirting with BCS caliber to an also ran.

[TheAsianSensation]

I have no idea what to make of this move. Out of nowhere, almost seemingly. Separating yourself from a conference when the superconference era is threatening to start could be a fatal move. Going independent and having your own TV network could be brilliant. Scheduling gets tougher. The WAC looks willing to compromise their integrity by pulling a Big East/Notre Dame. The MWC's BCS hopes are destroyed. There's so many angles here.

[MacabreMob]

Maybe they had a problem with Boise St joining the Mountain West.

[BradleyBrave]

Who's next...Duke? Boston College? TCU? I say, all religious schools that play football should go independent! Notre Dame has to be getting testy that their 'status' as THE football independent is about to be matched or dare I say bested by BYU.

[tornado]

Who's next...Duke? Boston College? TCU? I say, all religious schools that play football should go independent! Notre Dame has to be getting testy that their 'status' as THE football independent is about to be matched or dare I say bested by BYU.

you might be right....
for decades, there has been talk of why do the top Catholic schools allow the non-Catholic schools to share in their revenue...
there has been a proposed mega-Catholic conference for years that would have Notre Dame, BC, DePaul, Duquesne, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Loyola, Marquette, Niagara, SLU, Seton Hall, Villanova, Xavier, and Creighton...even Dayton, Detroit, playing basketball...and somehow maybe get a FB conference out of them as well.......

BTW -- which of the following are Catholic universities...
Lewis University, Quincy University, University of San Diego, Portland, Siena, Chaminade, and/or Providence...yup, they all are...
there's enough Catholic schools that they could make several decent conferences.........

[real fan]

Who's next...Duke? Boston College? TCU? I say, all religious schools that play football should go independent! Notre Dame has to be getting testy that their 'status' as THE football independent is about to be matched or dare I say bested by BYU.

You must be joking, Notre Dame will never be bested or matched by anyone else going independent with all the tradition and resources that they have all across the country.

[it's boogie time]

BYU-TV is on 200 cable providers worldwide. It reaches 40 million households in South America.

[bigjimmy]

That didn't take long. According to ESPN Fresno State and Univeristy of Nevada at Reno have both accepted invitations to join the MWC starting in 2011. That will leave the WAC with just 6 teams. Would that leave them with enough teams to still have an automatic bearth for March Madness or would they look to join other conferences like the Big Sky or WCC. Do these 2additions keep BYU from leaving the MWC.

[squirrelgotdead]

That didn't take long. According to ESPN Fresno State and Univeristy of Nevada at Reno have both accepted invitations to join the MWC starting in 2011. That will leave the WAC with just 6 teams. Would that leave them with enough teams to still have an automatic bearth for March Madness or would they look to join other conferences like the Big Sky or WCC. Do these 2additions keep BYU from leaving the MWC.

Autobid is safe. NCAA continuity rules for autobid are as follows:

-6 core members that have been in the same league for at least 2 years
-If reduced below 6, you have a 2-year window to add members and retain that core of 6

While San Jose State may not stick around, the WAC could easily raid the Big Sky (Montana, Montana State, Sacramento State, Idaho State) and Summit (UND, USD, NDSU, SDSU and Southern Utah)

[amckillip]

That didn't take long. According to ESPN Fresno State and Univeristy of Nevada at Reno have both accepted invitations to join the MWC starting in 2011. That will leave the WAC with just 6 teams. Would that leave them with enough teams to still have an automatic bearth for March Madness or would they look to join other conferences like the Big Sky or WCC. Do these 2additions keep BYU from leaving the MWC.

Not bad gets. The MWC seems to have had a plan in place, but losing BYU and Utah certainly hurts them.

[TheAsianSensation]

To me, the existence of the WAC is in trouble.

The MWC can easily raid a combo of Utah St, New Mexico St, and Hawaii to get to 12, and that's my prediction. Everyone else scatters.

[Bravesfan]

Wow! Can't say I saw that one coming! I think BYU committed suicide doing making this move, particularly in basketball where the level of competition within the MWC elevated their chances of an at-large bid year in and year out. Now they will be LUCKY to get the kind of schedule they need to even be considered for the tournament. A very strange move indeed.

But I guess with the defection of Utah out of the MWC they felt they had no choice, though I strongly disagree with the move. Let's see if they can even get half the strong schedule that that other independent school gets each year (you know, the one a couple of hours to our northeast)!

[SFP]

Utah and now BYU! This really puts a damper on the MVC-MWC challenge.

[Bravesfan]

Utah and now BYU! This really puts a damper on the MVC-MWC challenge.

No kidding, though Utah St. has actually been more consistently good over the last few years than Utah has been.

Losing BYU though REALLY hurts!