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The Mountain West Conference will send a team to the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl this season, giving the conference six bowl affiliations, the conference and bowl game announced Monday. The New Orleans Bowl on Monday announced a contract extension with the Sun Belt and Conference USA for this six-year bowl cycle, but a Mountain West team will take the place of the C-USA team this year, when the game is played at 8 a.m. (Pacific time) on Dec. 20 at the Mercedez-Benz Superdome. It will be televised by ESPN. Javan Hedlund, a spokesman for the MWC, said there are talks for the MWC to get a spot in three of those six years, but nothing has been finalized yet. He said there are "several moving parts" to the agreement. Colorado State took part in the inaugural New Orleans Bowl in 2001, and San Diego State did so in 2011. Read more: http://www.rgj.com/story/sports/college/nevada/2014/07/14/mountain-west-send-team-new-orleans-bowl/12653461/

LAS VEGAS – The gulf between college football’s 1 percent and the proletariat is widening. In recent weeks, several of the top power brokers in the sport have proclaimed that it might be time for some major restructuring. Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Monday that it might be time to consider a model in which the five major conferences (Pac-12, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC) would form their own “federation” within the NCAA — because it’s no longer practical for football programs with million-dollar budgets to be governed by the same rules as programs with budgets of more than $100 million. Tuesday afternoon, Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said he agreed with Bowlsby, but played down the idea that the “Big 5” might be considering a secession from the NCAA. “If you read carefully, what they are saying is that there needs to be transformative change. Field hockey cannot be treated like football,” Thompson said, adding that he does not think the top 70 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision will break away from the rest of the football-playing schools any time soon. “It might happen; I don’t think it will happen,” Thompson said. “I think there will be a different solution for those people. If they want to give (student-athletes) cost-of-attendance stipends, we should allow them to do that. It’s not going to affect the way we perform and play.” It won’t affect the conferences finances, either, Thompson said – at least not in the near future. The Mountain West recently signed a seven-year media rights deal with ESPN and CBS Sports Network through the 2019-20 season. “CBS Sports Network and ESPN would have to pay us the same $18-20 million," Thompson said. "We have a contract." Read more: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jul/23/mwc-craig-thompson-major-change-college-football/

Thompson said a decision about San Diego State will likely come before Jan. 31. As per Boise State's agreement with the Mountain West, the Aztecs' first option to join the league ends on that date. "We'll see where San Diego State takes us or not. That's the next probable, likely step. ... I don't know that we're going to have to get to January 31," Thompson said. If San Diego State does remain in the league, Thompson expects the Mountain West to play the 2013 football season with 12 members. There has been talk about the league growing past 12 with Texas schools (Houston, SMU or UTEP). "I would say with about 99 percent chance on January 4 that we will be either an 11-team or a 12-team league for 2013." Read more here: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2013/01/04/bmurphy/mountain_west_daily_contact_with_san_diego_state_not_case_with_b?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IdahoStatesmanMurphsTurf+%28IdahoStatesman.com+Murph%27s+Turf%29#storylink=cpy