UTEP moving to Mountain West?

Coach Bill Lewis · March 16, 2018

This information comes from the NMSU Chancellor and is linked below for authenticty:

Activity Report March 3 – March 9
By Office of President | Published March 13, 2018

Chancellor Garrey Carruthers

"While at the WAC Basketball Tournament, I met with the Presidents and Athletic Directors of the WAC schools to discuss business as well as the challenges facing the Conference regarding membership. The WAC is initiating an aggressive membership campaign. Commissioner Jeff Hurd said “something was going to happen and happen soon” regarding conference alignments and realignments. One rumor was the Mountain West would become a 16-member conference with two-8 member divisions. NMSU could come into play as a new member, along with UTEP."

https://president.nmsu.edu/activity-report-march-3-march-9/

UNTLifer · March 16, 2018

Can't start these discussions until the off season begins and we have two pages of uniform talk.

Edited March 16, 2018 by UNTLifer

Arkstfan · March 16, 2018

1 hour ago, Coach Bill Lewis said:

This information comes from the NMSU Chancellor and is linked below for authenticty:

Activity Report March 3 – March 9
By Office of President | Published March 13, 2018

Chancellor Garrey Carruthers

"While at the WAC Basketball Tournament, I met with the Presidents and Athletic Directors of the WAC schools to discuss business as well as the challenges facing the Conference regarding membership. The WAC is initiating an aggressive membership campaign. Commissioner Jeff Hurd said “something was going to happen and happen soon” regarding conference alignments and realignments. One rumor was the Mountain West would become a 16-member conference with two-8 member divisions. NMSU could come into play as a new member, along with UTEP."

https://president.nmsu.edu/activity-report-march-3-march-9/

I have a hard time seeing New Mexico or UTEP being enthusiastic about NMSU. NMSU fills a vital role in plugging the non-conference schedule. Let them in and now you lose a locked in non-conference date across multiple sports.

I'd love it for NMSU but I don't see it making good financial sense for UNM.

MCMLXXX · March 17, 2018

2 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

I have a hard time seeing New Mexico or UTEP being enthusiastic about NMSU. NMSU fills a vital role in plugging the non-conference schedule. Let them in and now you lose a locked in non-conference date across multiple sports.

I'd love it for NMSU but I don't see it making good financial sense for UNM.

UTEP's input would be irrelevant, they would not get a vote. Even with NMSU joining I don't think UTEP would be affected. NMSU basketball is a plus.

NorthTexan95 · March 17, 2018

These rumors of UTEP leaving CUSA seem to pop up every year but never seem to come for UTEP themselves. Maybe they would rather go west but I won't worry about it until someone from UTEP's leadership actually says something to that effect or it actually happens.

GTWT · March 17, 2018

Please miners, can we come too?

wardly · March 17, 2018

From what I have read the MWC wants to beef up its basketball programs, and they are not interested in increasing the number of football teams.This would work great for BYU as they could move all sports except football to MWC, play football as an independent ,and keep their television contract much like UT except on a smaller scale.It also would be a life saver for NMSU, but the Lobos would probably nix that idea.

southsideguy · March 17, 2018

UTEP has always wanted to be in the MWC. When the old WAC broke up UTEP was left without a conference. UTEP has a lot of history with most of the MWC teams and they are in the same time zone. Right now I dont what UTEP would bring to the MWC. UTEP football and basketball program are really struggling. We have been through what UTEP is gong through many times and I think it has cost us better conference opportunities. I dont think the the P-5 will be adding anyone because they dont want to share the pie.

Maybe the next conference shake ups will make room for some strong regional conferences. I think the P5 conferences should break into their own league and not be part of the NCAA because they tend to walk all over the NCAA.

Let the P6 develop their own conference that make sense regionally because the TV money is being sucked out of the P5 teams. Then make the P5 teams pay a fortune if they want to play a P6 school. Maybe this would make the P5 schools get back to their rivalry games like A&M vs the Long Whores, Nebraska vs Oklahoma...etc.

RBP79 · March 17, 2018

What financial benefits do NMSU and UTEP bring to the the table...not much. I would think that if the MWC are going to add schools that they would want them somewhat financially sound (the athletic departments) and extend their recruiting territory.

outoftown · March 17, 2018

Hmm. I wonder if the MWC may be willing to give out temporary membership to the two schools similar to what the Sunbelt did with Idaho and NMSU) to see how it goes. If that were the case this would, however, be a huge gamble for UTEP.

It's probably no coincidence that this comes out of NMSUs kitchen since NMSU has nothing to lose and certainly wants discussion and more fluidity in the conference landscape.

UNTexas · March 17, 2018

UTEP is terrible academically and awful at sports. Not a loss if they go. The real question is why would MWC want them?

Edited March 17, 2018 by UNTexas

untjim1995 · March 18, 2018

The MWC will get back into Texas, but it won’t be anytime soon. They could get UTEP anytime, but they’d much rather have TCU, Baylor, and any other Big XII leftovers. I suspect that both of those schools will go to the MWC when the Big XII GOR expires in 2025.

But I suspect UTEP and another Texas school could join them, like UTSA, Rice, or us.

wardly · March 18, 2018

It appears that the MWC has invited the ZAGS to join, and that an announcement will come in April. I don't know who else they have targeted for basketball, but will grow the conference by 2 or 4 schools. They are not seeking additional football programs.

greenminer · March 18, 2018

3 hours ago, wardly said:

It appears that the MWC has invited the ZAGS to join, and that an announcement will come in April.

Where did you read this?

wardly · March 18, 2018

8 hours ago, greenminer said:

Where did you read this?

Google "MWC expansion".

TreeFiddy · March 18, 2018

I don’t believe the NCAA allows a team to put its basketball in one conference and put football elsewhere if the first conference offers the same level of football (ie FBS). Because of this I don’t think BYU could play MWC hoops and place their football somewhere else.

Arkstfan · March 18, 2018

10 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

I don’t believe the NCAA allows a team to put its basketball in one conference and put football elsewhere if the first conference offers the same level of football (ie FBS). Because of this I don’t think BYU could play MWC hoops and place their football somewhere else.

Almost.

You mean like how Notre Dame plays all sports except football in the ACC?

The NCAA requires that if a conference wants to be treated as an FBS conference (ie. vote on FBS issues) that there must be 8 FBS schools playing all sports in the conference.

The NCAA doesn't care where the 9th or 10th football member plays its other sports as long as there are 8 all sports football members.

After Utah left MWC, BYU was going to play everything but football in the WAC but MWC raided WAC and left it on the verge of collapse.

As a practical matter most conferences want all members to be all in unless they need a school in a sport to round out the numbers.

If Texas wanted to go independent in football and wanted CUSA as its home for all other sports it wouldn't take long for CUSA to bless that move but if FAU announced they were joining AAC football only it wouldn't take long to kick them out of CUSA in other sports.

TreeFiddy · March 18, 2018

Of course. Not sure what I was thinking. Keeping football independent is allowed.

However, isn’t there a rule about having basketball in a conference that has FBS football and placing football in another FBS conference?

El Paso Eagle · March 18, 2018

10 hours ago, greenminer said:

Where did you read this?

The article I read made it sound like the zags might be using this more as a negotiation with their current conference. They want a bigger piece of the money they are bringing every year from the NCAA tournament since it is currently split between the conference schools and the zags have been the main school for years bringing in the money

Arkstfan · March 18, 2018

1 hour ago, TreeFiddy said:

Of course. Not sure what I was thinking. Keeping football independent is allowed.

However, isn’t there a rule about having basketball in a conference that has FBS football and placing football in another FBS conference?

NCAA doesn't care. Their interest ends in football as soon as you show you have 8 FBS members playing all-sports (at least 12 sports) and in hoops ends as soon as you show you have at least 7 schools playing at least 12 sports in the conference.

Most every conference has a rule saying that if you are a full member then any sport you offer where the conference offers a championship, you must play that sport in the conference.

So if UNT adds baseball, you can't be an independent or an affiliate of the Southland. If Sun Belt started sponsoring women's swimming and diving again, UALR would have to move that sport out of the MoValley. If the MWC offered men's soccer, New Mexico would have to leave CUSA.

Some conferences will also have a rule requiring any full member to sponsor certain specific sports.

Arkstfan · March 18, 2018

1 hour ago, El Paso Eagle said:

The article I read made it sound like the zags might be using this more as a negotiation with their current conference. They want a bigger piece of the money they are bringing every year from the NCAA tournament since it is currently split between the conference schools and the zags have been the main school for years bringing in the money

Maybe.

We know what the Wichita State president was saying in the run up to getting an AAC invite (when they were still toying with adding football). His logic was it is getting harder and harder for non-P5 schools to get TV exposure and respect from poll voters and the selection committee and made no bones he thought Wichita State needed to join MWC or AAC to have better exposure and respect.

Wichita clearly felt that but for football, MWC and AAC were peer schools.

Gonzaga being a small Catholic school might believe that affiliating with large public universities is not in their best interest. I think that would be a mistake but I'm not getting paid six figures to be responsible for their best interests.

Arkstfan · March 18, 2018

20 hours ago, UNTexas said:

UTEP is terrible academically and awful at sports. Not a loss if they go. The real question is why would MWC want them?

Craig Thompson as a commissioner doesn't just think outside the box, he denies the box exists.

But the more I think on it, I just can't see it making a great deal of sense for MWC to do anything other than add Gonzaga.

The only way any larger would make sense would be if BYU were to return and that doesn't seem likely. If BYU came back, I could see inviting UTEP to round out to 14 and pushing Boise to the western division. Otherwise it really doesn't make much sense.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Arkstfan

wardly · March 18, 2018

It's all about increasing their basketball profile. Football doesn't enter into it at this point. Also,FYI, Hawaii plays football in MWC, has all other sports in Big west.

Aquila_Viridis · March 19, 2018

This is a lot of speculation based on NMS desperation.

outoftown · March 19, 2018

I guess for the MWC the first step here is easy: You currently got 12 teams in FB (Hawaii is FB only) and 11 in BB, so adding one in only BBall makes sense, and Gonzaga simply has the most to offer.

Edited March 19, 2018 by outoftown