Realignment Jolts Mountain West

[Harry]

Conference realignment dealt another big blow to the CSU and the Mountain West Conference on Wednesday, with the official announcement that Boise State and San Diego State are taking their football programs to the Big East Conference following the 2012 season.

"It leaves the Mountain West completely irrelevant," Colorado State University alum and fan Justin Hozee said while watching the Rams' nationally televised men's basketball game against Duke with friends at CB & Potts Restaurant and Brewery just west of campus.

"It makes you wonder when the (Western Athletic Conference) and the Mountain West are going to come back together," his friend, Kaycee Lytle, said.

"And all the powerhouses have left," Hozee added.

Indeed, the conference that could make a strong case for an automatic-qualifying berth in the Bowl Championship just two years ago, now has lost, or soon will, all four of the football programs that allowed the MW to make that argument. Utah left for the Pacific-12 Conference and Brigham Young for football independence last summer, TCU is moving to the Big 12 on July 1. Boise State, which just completed its first football regular season in the MW, is moving its other sports programs back into the WAC, so the football team can reap the rewards of a new television contract in an expanded Big East.

"Just imagine what the Mountain West would be like if BYU, Utah, TCU and now Boise had all stayed," said CSU safety Drew Reilly, a freshman from the San Diego area. "We'd have a heck of a conference had we all stuck together."

San Diego State, a charter member of the MW when it was formed prior to the 1999-2000 school year, is expected to announce that its other sports are moving to the Big West Conference, although that has not been finalized. The MW, commissioner Craig Thompson said in July, made it clear to all of its members that schools moving their football programs to other conferences would not be allowed to remain in the Mountain West in other sports.

The latest departures will leave the MW with eight schools for football come 2013 - charter members Air Force, CSU, New Mexico, UNLV and Wyoming, along with Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii, who are moving over from the WAC next fall. Hawaii is only bringing its football program to the MW and placing its other sports, including a powerhouse volleyball program, in the Big West. Fresno State and Nevada will become full members of the MW.

Read More: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20111208/NEWS01/112080337