I know Utah State and NMSU both wanted to join the WAC at its inception and were denied. That was followed by decades of WAC rejections.

UTEP and Colorado State were 7 and 8.

Arizona schools left and were replaced with San Diego State, Hawaii, and UNLV (under conditions they didn’t fulfill, but interestingly were playing a full WAC schedule). Then came Air Force.

There was so much potential for a 2nd power Western conference and a decent 3rd which would've saved Idaho. I'd wish it'd be something like this:

PAC: Washington, Washington St, Oregon, Oregon St, California, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona St
MWC: Utah, BYU, San Diego St, UNLV, Boise St, Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force, New Mexico, TCU
WAC: Hawaii, Fresno St, San Jose St, Nevada, Idaho, Utah St, New Mexico St, UTEP, UTSA

(08-15-2018 05:12 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  

(08-15-2018 04:22 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 12:51 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  The Oregon Schools made the correct choice.

What is fascinating is before the Pac-8 formed, there was talk of a National conference, with Cal, UCLA, UW, WSU, Stanford and USC plating "majors" in a new league with Air Force, Army, Navy, Notre Dame, Penn State and Penn (yes Ivy League Penn) among others. It fell apart before it ever happened when the academies nixed it. It sort of puts the American attempt to go after the Academies in perspective (but they overlooked Penn!).

They should have pursued Penn St, Pit, Syracuse, BC, and Notre Dame. Those 5 all have academic clout.

I'm thinking in the early days they play 6 conference games: their division mates and then 1 home and 1 away on the opposite coast. Eventually this league might have grown to 12 or 14 members on opposite coasts.

This probably would be a football arrangement. I think both the East Coast and West Coast schools would need a few Olympic tag-a-longs.

West Coast winner has a Rose Bowl tie in. East Coast winner plays in the Orange Bowl through the BCS era.

Fall out had this happened and been sustained: we get a much stronger WAC: Oregon, Ore St, Wash St, Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, BYU, Wyoming, UNM, and possibly Montana and Idaho get tossed in too.
UTEP and Colorado St might be caught in a bind here.
Back east, if Airplane conference east begins an Olympic sports league then maybe the Big East founders join up. If the league expands to 12 Rutgers is likely the first eastern addition.

I love reading about conference histories...even the Big East hahaha.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this---The WAC: Around 1960 BYU and Utah got together with the idea of forming a conference with Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Arizona St, Washington St and Oregon St. Those 8 schools had an official meeting. Washington St and Oregon St declined because they wanted back with their old conference mates and formed the PAC 8. UNM, Wyoming, Arizona and Arizona St said yes. I've read Colorado St and Utah St both wanted in to that original 6 school WAC, but were declined. Colorado St got in about 6 or 7 years later. Utah St was never invited until those 6 original WAC schools left the conference. I don't know that Oregon and Washington were at the meeting or ever interested?

Oregon was in the mix too as they were also left out at the time.

Skyline members Utah, BYU, Wyoming, and UNM ultimately joined up with the Border's Arizona and Arizona St.

When it became clear that Wash St and the Oregon schools were out Colorado St and UTEP were brought in to round out membership.

Utah St, Montana, Denver, NMSU, NAU, and West Texas A&M were all left out and there might have been a few others.

When the WAC was formed Utah State was ruling the roost in the Skyline Conference. Not getting into the WAC has kept USU down in football for a long time till they finally got into the MW. Legend has it that Utah and BYU conspired to keep them out.


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(08-15-2018 11:35 PM)Jjoey52 Wrote:  When the WAC was formed Utah State was ruling the roost in the Skyline Conference. Not getting into the WAC has kept USU down in football for a long time till they finally got into the MW. Legend has it that Utah and BYU conspired to keep them out.


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Utah State never won an outright Mountain State's football title, but shared 3. BYU never won a title. Wyoming was on a tear at the end, winning 5 of its 7 titles in the final 6 years of the conference to overtake Colorado for the second most titles in the conference history. BYU was somewhat of an unlikely driver for formation of the WAC as this was 10 years pre Lavell Edwards and BYU was a historically terrible football program. Per Winsipesia, at the time of heading to the WAC, BYU's historic record vs USU was 13-22-3. BYU's record vs Utah was 3-33-4. It was pretty audacious for BYU, being what it was at the time, to go out an spearhead the formation of a new conference.

The PAC12 traces its roots back to and claims the history of the PCC, but it's just as much a "best of" the contemporary PCC, Skyline (Mountain States), and Border Conferences. Texas Tech is the only school from these conferences that plays in a Power conference other than the PAC. Colorado State and New Mexico are the only Carnegie "highest" research schools from those 3 conferences which are not in the PAC.