WAC is back in game
Conference will play in FCS, but NMSU chooses to stay with higher-tier FBS
Having personally experienced 54 changes to his league’s alignment since joining its front office more than 30 years ago, Western Athletic Conference Commissioner Jeff Hurd knows a thing or two about expansion and contraction in college athletics.
That’s why he called Thursday’s announcement that the WAC was expanding with the addition of five new schools “the most impactful” in the long and convoluted history of the league.
“And it’s not even close,” he said during a news conference in Houston’s NRG Stadium, one that ushered in the return of football to the WAC and rolled out the welcome wagon for league newcomers Sam Houston State, Abilene Christian, Lamar, Stephen F. Austin and Southern Utah. “This is not a routine announcement. This is a historic announcement for the conference.”
The 13-team alignment will be split into separate divisions to minimize travel for Olympic sports. Crossover games will be held in basketball with the annual postseason championship tournament to remain in Las Vegas, Nev.
Once the home to the University of New Mexico, Arizona State, Utah and Brigham Young, the WAC has undergone drastic changes over the years, alterations that have transformed New Mexico State into one of the higher-profile members of the current alignment.
NMSU is the only school remaining from the WAC’s alignment just a decade ago. It joined the conference in 2005 and has won numerous championships in several sports ever since. With everyone around heading to other conferences the last 15 years — among them, former conference rivals Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, Idaho and Denver — NMSU has been the only mainstay.
“To add five schools, I think that puts to rest the instability questions,” said NMSU athletic director Mario Moccia. “That, to me, is first and foremost.”
The WAC has been without football since 2012 but will reinstate a seven-team alignment in 2021, albeit at the college sport’s second tier. The WAC will play at the Football Championship Subdivision, formerly Division I-AA.
Moccia said NMSU was extended an invitation to be the eighth member of that alignment but he made it clear the Aggies have other plans.
“The elephant in the room is football,” he said. “FCS football is coming back to the Western Athletic Conference, I think that’s great. … Our die is cast in the FBS.”
Defections and massive conference realignment a decade ago forced the WAC to drop football following the 2012 season. It sent NMSU on a meandering path that includes two stints as an independent and a four-year stretch in the far-flung Sun Belt, a run that ended with the Aggies’ win over Utah State in the 2017 Arizona Bowl.
Minus a conference affiliation to maintain some semblance of a schedule following the onset of COVID-19, NMSU became one of the few major programs to cancel its 2020 season. The Aggies have tentative plans to play an abbreviated four-game schedule this fall.
With football, the WAC is now home to 20 sports and more Division I schools from Texas (six) than any other conference. The geographic footprint includes three schools from Utah and one apiece in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Washington.
“It’s almost surreal when you think about where the WAC has been,” said Grand Canyon University President Brian Mueller. “After a long illustrious history in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the last 10 years have been difficult. There were days, weeks, months where we didn’t know for sure if we were going to survive.”
Chicago State announced Thursday that it is leaving the WAC after an eight-year run, just months after Cal State Bakersfield officially left the conference for a new home in the Big West. It continues the league’s exit from the Midwest and, aside from Seattle’s membership, has most of its schools in the same region of the country.
The inspiration for adding the Texas schools, Moccia said, was a no-brainer. Each comes with enormous potential for growth, not to mention the economic impact of growing fan bases with larger media interests.
As he spoke to NMSU’s media contingent via Zoom conference call from NRG Stadium, Moccia was just a few feet away from Sam Houston State’s administrators and the swarm of media surrounding them.
“I do think that these Texas schools look at a North Texas, a Texas State, a UTSA and I think they look at them and say, ‘Hey that used to be us a few years ago,’ ” he said.
None of the five new members is set to join the WAC until June 2022, but their football teams will start competing under the WAC umbrella immediately.
“It’s a move,” Hurd said, “that charts an aggressive and exciting course for the conference.”
Following the onset of COVID-19, NMSU became one of the few major programs to cancel its 2020 season. The Aggies have tentative plans to play an abbreviated four-game schedule this fall.