Robb Akey and crew spent the final weekend of the 2011 football season in Reno — receiving a 50-point thumping from host Nevada Wolf Pack.
The regrettable season finale was the last time the Vandals will face the Wolf Pack in the foreseeable future.
The Wolf Pack, Fresno State and Hawaii have all committed to join the Mountain West for the 2012-2013 athletic calendars in all sports.
The WAC is replacing these programs with a two-step of Texas teams for football — Texas State, and Texas-San Antonio. The WAC also has commitments from Seattle University, the University of Denver, and Texas-Arlington to join the conference in all sports except football, giving the conference 10 teams with seven playing football. Boise State, in the midst of Big East expansion, will also bring all of its non-football sports back to the WAC for 2013-2014.
“The WAC is well-positioned for the future,” Karl Benson, commissioner of the WAC, said. “We gotta realize there is a lot of unknown happening around us. Until we know whether any of those changes will impact the WAC membership. It’s pretty hard to speculate.”
In the fluid, sometimes-confusing world of conference re-alignment, movement happens every day. Such as earlier this week when the Big East announced additions that included Boise State and San Diego State of the Mountain West, as well as potentially Air Force in the future. The MWC is already losing Texas Christian to the Big 12.
The WAC’s position is that departing WAC schools would be welcomed back should they choose not to join the Mountain West, considering the conference’s uncertain future.
“I would say that they have not given us any indication that they are interested in returning,” Jeff Hurd, senior assistant commissioner of the WAC, said. “I do not anticipate them returning to the WAC but the door is open if they choose to do so.”
During the storm of movement throughout the last year and a half all but one automatic BCS qualifying conference has had teams join or commit to doing so in the future.
The movement has a trickle-down effect on the rest of college football because in order to replenish teams lost, the BCS AQ conferences often dip into mid major conferences like the Mountain West and Conference USA.
“The unknown is what is going on around the WAC, until any of that happens you don’t know,” Benson said. “The focus is on what we have.”
What the WAC will have, at the very least, is seven football-playing members with the addition of Texas State and Texas-San Antonio.
Texas State and Texas-San Antonio will bring two of the more well-known names in college football to the WAC. Texas State is coached by former Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione.
Texas-San Antonio is led by a former National Champion coach at Miami, Larry Coker.
The WAC’s goal is to have at least nine football playing members by the beginning of the 2013-2014 athletic calendar. Although that could leave the conference with at least four non-football institutions, and above the 12 originally intended before Boise State announced its intention to re-join in non-football sports.
“Nine football playing schools is still the goal,” Hurd said. “If we have to go beyond 12 then we have to.”
Until there are any more major tectonic shifts in the world of college football, the WAC anticipates no further immediate action in adjusting the schools for the 2012-2013 athletic calendar.
“The whole issue of conference re-alignment is still a very fluid situation. I think its pre mature to establish a hard and fast rule about ultimately where the WAC will end up. We have to react about what happens around us,” Hurd said. “We would be naive to assume that the issue is over.”.