P12 - MWC

[307bball]

If we had a strong athletic department that included a football team that gets ranked and wins a championship once in a while along with a really solid bball program, we would have to make a decision about joining the pac (sans unknown or nonpublic riffs in the MWC).

My tea leaves say osu and wsu wanted to remain in control so reverse merger was out. They also wanted to have, to the best of their ability, a conference that would be somewhat palatable to cal and stanford should the acc collapse. Either way, usu didn't get in because of some great market advantage. They are just a better run athletic department with better product.

Our product largely stinks, so there we are. On the bright side, we have a chance and environment to improve on it. On the dim side we have the same culture running the show...a culture that tends to regress to the bottom end of our level of competition.

I trust the folks that opine on media penetration metrics and market desirability....those pretty much have Wyoming's market dead last. Does the Pac care about that?....I can't imagine they don't. Now..I do believe they had to hold their nose as they invited USU and CSU but they had to invite somebody. They took the best of the rest, in their opinion. They had thier reasons...I would be shocked if market factors did not feed into that decision.

What about who has a "better run" athletic department? I would put the stinking product that UW has produced next the the stinking product that CSU has produced and challenge anybody to tell me the difference...just like you did when you dove into viewership numbers. None of these athletic programs are lighting the world on fire. Wyoming and USU have the exact same amount of conference wins in football for the last ten years and both are better than CSU. In order to rank them you have to go into non-revenue sports pretty heavily....is that what is moving the needle? That is just if you consider the only product of an athletic department to be results on the playing field. What about donations? what about attendance? Facilities? Are we being blown away in these categories?

I'm getting to the point now that perhaps the only reason Wyoming wasn't even considered is the conspiratorial one of the MWC defectors not wanting us or OSU, and WSU not wanting us.... also out of our control.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

I trust the folks that opine on media penetration metrics and market desirability....those pretty much have Wyoming's market dead last. Does the Pac care about that?....I can't imagine they don't. Now..I do believe they had to hold their nose as they invited USU and CSU but they had to invite somebody. They took the best of the rest, in their opinion. They had thier reasons...I would be shocked if market factors did not feed into that decision.

What about who has a "better run" athletic department? I would put the stinking product that UW has produced next the the stinking product that CSU has produced and challenge anybody to tell me the difference...just like you did when you dove into viewership numbers. None of these athletic programs are lighting the world on fire. Wyoming and USU have the exact same amount of conference wins in football for the last ten years and both are better than CSU. In order to rank them you have to go into non-revenue sports pretty heavily....is that what is moving the needle? That is just if you consider the only product of an athletic department to be results on the playing field. What about donations? what about attendance? Facilities? Are we being blown away in these categories?

I'm getting to the point now that perhaps the only reason Wyoming wasn't even considered is the conspiratorial one of the MWC defectors not wanting us or OSU, and WSU not wanting us.... also out of our control.

bsu for brand football is no brainer. Solid to good bball.

suds for recent bball and solid football.

Fresno relatively strong football and still a decent brand from the old play anyone anywhere anytime days. A couple mwc champs in past 7 years.

csu can be decent in bball recently--a few tourney bids. Nonrevenue sports. I think similar institution as wsu with vet school, and strong financial commitment to improving.

usu solid to good bball. Have won regular season or mwc tourney 3 or 4 of last 7 and been tourney runner up a few times. Won the mwc in football a few years ago.

Remaining
UNM cross country and can have good bball at times. Football is a mess.
Sjsu can field decent football once in a while. Terrible bball.
Unlv said no
AF, academy so hard to tell on this one.
NV has been mostly dysfunctional in athletics. 7 to 10 years ago good bball.
WYO decent football. Unknown if that can continue without Bohl. Pretty much dysfunctional everywhere else.

I think it sorts itself out pretty easily based mostly on performance.

 

[307bball]

bsu for brand football is no brainer. Solid to good bball.

suds for recent bball and solid football.

Fresno relatively strong football and still a decent brand from the old play anyone anywhere anytime days. A couple mwc champs in past 7 years.

csu can be decent in bball recently--a few tourney bids. Nonrevenue sports. I think similar institution as wsu with vet school, and strong financial commitment to improving.

usu solid to good bball. Have won regular season or mwc tourney 3 or 4 of last 7 and been tourney runner up a few times. Won the mwc in football a few years ago.

Remaining
UNM cross country and can have good bball at times. Football is a mess.
Sjsu can field decent football once in a while. Terrible bball.
Unlv said no
AF, academy so hard to tell on this one.
NV has been mostly dysfunctional in athletics. 7 to 10 years ago good bball.
WYO decent football. Unknown if that can continue without Bohl. Pretty much dysfunctional everywhere else.

I think it sorts itself out pretty easily based mostly on performance.

I agree that if you rank athletic departments by how good the programs are within the department you end up with something like what you have written...I think you are way off on CSU though...vet school doesn't matter at all to athletic department performance. I would argue that everything behind SDSU is pretty flat though...BSU and SDSU might run away with it because of their national relevance in football and basketball but the difference between whomever you put third and last isn't gigantic. Also...it would shock me to the core if Olympic sports was more than an afterthought in these discussions.

Do you agree that the only thing that was remotely in the University's of Wyoming control that could have helped them get an invitation or be included in a higher echelon of college athletics was higher performance by UW Football program along with middle of the pack MBB results?

 

[PorkerPoke]

The pathway to mattering in college sports in 2025, for Wyoming, was to have had a much more competitive product than it has accomplished. Sadly..the long term planning that was done at UW back in the 90's allowed facility construction to become primary. That was an error. We are seeing the results now.

I was invited twice by the UW Athletic Department in the early 2000’s to participate in a fan forum to discuss how to increase fan engagement.

The things most fans came up with were lame such as:

“I can’t attend a 12 noon kickoff because I want to watch little Johnny play soccer.”

“Don’t have any home games during hunting season.”

“Don’t have home games during high school football playoffs”.

“Not interested in the FCS or MAC opponents.”

“Recruit more Wyoming high school players.”

I told them both times that they could never placate everyone paying attention to those kind of suggestions. My position loud and clear was put a winner on the field. I pointed out that basketball grew in attendance as it was successful. Win and expect to win and the fans will want to be there.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

I agree that if you rank athletic departments by how good the programs are within the department you end up with something like what you have written...I think you are way off on CSU though...vet school doesn't matter at all to athletic department performance. I would argue that everything behind SDSU is pretty flat though...BSU and SDSU might run away with it because of their national relevance in football and basketball but the difference between whomever you put third and last isn't gigantic. Also...it would shock me to the core if Olympic sports was more than an afterthought in these discussions.

Do you agree that the only thing that was remotely in the University's of Wyoming control that could have helped them get an invitation or be included in a higher echelon of college athletics was higher performance by UW Football program along with middle of the pack MBB results?

csu did make the tourney 3 of last 4 years. We have 3 in 25 years (if you count first 4).

It's probably a pretty fine line but that's a metric they beat us in. We were better in football but still largely 4th or worse.

For your last statement I would reword as the thing that was totally in our control was football and bball success. The failure of those is largely, mostly, maybe entirely why we find ourselves overlooked. The failure of those was entirely within our control. So yes, I agree.

 

[PorkerPoke]

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while... you don't do things right once in a while... you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.”

Vince Lombardi

Wyoming sports are in the rarely once in awhile category…

 

[Itsux2beaewe]

Why would the other schools collectively work to screw UW?

You really don’t believe goat U would screw UW? Or the maggie’s, the spuds. I do!

 

[307bball]

csu did make the tourney 3 of last 4 years. We have 3 in 25 years (if you count first 4).

It's probably a pretty fine line but that's a metric they beat us in. We were better in football but still largely 4th or worse.

For your last statement I would reword as the thing that was totally in our control was football and bball success. The failure of those is largely, mostly, maybe entirely why we find ourselves overlooked. The failure of those was entirely within our control. So yes, I agree.

And that is the point...You absolutely can compare Wyoming and CSU in all these different ways. It's not a vast chasm, It kind of comes down to taste I guess. If you want Non-revenue sports then CSU gets the nod. Most college sports fans are football fans though and I would guess that CSU fans would trade places with us in non-revenue sports if it meant they had achieved Wyoming's mediocre football success over the last ten years while winning 7 of 10 of the border war games.

Like you, I think that an increase in competitive results in Football and MBB was needed. I wonder how much of an increase? What if Allen and company had won that conference championship game coupled with another NCAA tourney appearance? Would that have been enough? I have a guess...but that is all.

I think CSU and USU were invited for reasons that would never get an invitation for Wyoming. It wasn't because they are amazing athletic departments. CSU and USU are not juggernauts of competitiveness in revenue sports like BSU and SDSU. They are very, very average and in the case of football, CSU has been bad and the difference between Wyo and USU is that they won a chip game and we lost one. The got invited for some/all of the reasons everybody on here has been discussing. Those range from geography, political orientation, market value, collusion, P12 hates us, .... and on and on.

My theory is that you can be included in the "cool kids club" of college athletics based on all sorts of criteria. The trick is understanding who you are as an institution and leveraging that to your advantage. The tough part is if you have a deficiency in one category that is being considered, you likely have to blow people away in the other categories. I love that the university was able to get donations and attendance up. The built some pretty nice facilities along the way....but that never was going to set us apart from the UNM's, UTEP's, and NIU's of the world. In fact, absent anything else that could set us apart, schools like USU and CSU have risen relative to us. So now...I don't want to hear about the success's of attendance, donations, construction or any of that stuff from the administration. You have been vocal about not wanting to hear excuses about the challenges....I'm over them defining success with all of the things they have accomplished...it's like they fired an arrow into the side of a barn and then walked over and painted a bullseye where it hit. It's true that there are challenges that UW faces and it is true that they have succeeded in some areas...but it's missing the point.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

And that is the point...You absolutely can compare Wyoming and CSU in all these different ways. It's not a vast chasm, It kind of comes down to taste I guess. If you want Non-revenue sports then CSU gets the nod. Most college sports fans are football fans though and I would guess that CSU fans would trade places with us in non-revenue sports if it meant they had achieved Wyoming's mediocre football success over the last ten years while winning 7 of 10 of the border war games.

Like you, I think that an increase in competitive results in Football and MBB was needed. I wonder how much of an increase? What if Allen and company had won that conference championship game coupled with another NCAA tourney appearance? Would that have been enough? I have a guess...but that is all.

I think CSU and USU were invited for reasons that would never get an invitation for Wyoming. It wasn't because they are amazing athletic departments. CSU and USU are not juggernauts of competitiveness in revenue sports like BSU and SDSU. They are very, very average and in the case of football, CSU has been bad and the difference between Wyo and USU is that they won a chip game and we lost one. The got invited for some/all of the reasons everybody on here has been discussing. Those range from geography, political orientation, market value, collusion, P12 hates us, .... and on and on.

My theory is that you can be included in the "cool kids club" of college athletics based on all sorts of criteria. The trick is understanding who you are as an institution and leveraging that to your advantage. The tough part is if you have a deficiency in one category that is being considered, you likely have to blow people away in the other categories. I love that the university was able to get donations and attendance up. The built some pretty nice facilities along the way....but that never was going to set us apart from the UNM's, UTEP's, and NIU's of the world. In fact, absent anything else that could set us apart, schools like USU and CSU have risen relative to us. So now...I don't want to hear about the success's of attendance, donations, construction or any of that stuff from the administration. You have been vocal about not wanting to hear excuses about the challenges....I'm over them defining success with all of the things they have accomplished...it's like they fired an arrow into the side of a barn and then walked over and painted a bullseye where it hit. It's true that there are challenges that UW faces and it is true that they have succeeded in some areas...but it's missing the point.

At this point it's just message board speculation. I think you're underestimating the bball side and Gonzaga as well as overestimating our football. It was a decent run for us but 5th or worse in the mwc doesn't move the needle much--especially coupled with mostly terrible everything else.

They had to lure Gonzaga but they also understood that in the new ncaa athletic world, a strong non-power bball league is possible. Fresno no doubt wasn't considered in this regard. When you look at rpi/net we hurt the conference waaaay more than we help. The teams they invited help or on average don't hurt as much as we do. We aren't just bad but bottom of the barrel bad.

Obviously UNLV said no and who knows about AF? Looking strictly at competiveness, usu or csu vs UNM is a better analysis. usu probably gets the nod for having a competitive football program. csu vs UNM is kind of a head scratcher. Since they put investment criteria into their bylaws, I'm guessing UNM fell below or were likely to be below that line? csu probably looks pretty decent from a bball and investment standpoint.

WYO has a good enough brand as illustrated by the program valuation studies. Attendance is decent in football and potential in bball. Our budgets, facilities, etc are all in line with g6. Obviously we don't know how nil/revenue share will compare for another 5 years or so.

All we have is a 5th place or lower football team that is now trending downward. We stink at everything else and are an anchor to conference mates' rpi/net. That's all there is to it. Really csu is the only one that appears on the competitive bubble; I'm guessing their investment commitment put them in. The rest sort themselves pretty nicely.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Also, you do realize usu ended the football season in the t25 twice since 2018, right? We haven't ended ranked in this century. Their bball program is easily top 4-5 in mwc.

 

[PorkerPoke]

Also, you do realize usu ended the football season in the t25 twice since 2018, right? We haven't ended ranked in this century. Their bball program is easily top 4-5 in mwc.

Football is the #1 component in all of this. We are to be delighted by these results as we had our best run since the 90’s. The big difference was being able to find a way to beat 1-2 weaker teams per season.

A review of the Bohl years and why in the past decade no one really took Wyoming football that seriously:

W-L in games under 300 yards of total offense:

14 0-3
15 0-3
16 0-0
17 5-3
18 0-5
19 2-3
20 0-1
21 0-4
22 2-5
23 1-3

10-30 (.250) under 300 yds
6-21 (.222) mwc under 300 yds
4-9 (.308) OOC under 300 yds

51-30 (.630) over 300 yds
31-20 (.608) mwc over 300 yds
19-10 (.655) OOC over 300 yds

61-60 (.504) all games and it took a 9-4 year to achieve getting over the .500 mark.
37-41 (.474) in the MWC.

33% of all games were under 300 yards of offense

25% win rate (22.2% mwc) under 300 yards of offense

67.5% of under 300 yards of offense were conference games

Bohl’s best win total at 9-4:
2023 4-4 vs .500+
2023 5-0 vs sub .500

Bohl dominated the weak portion of the schedule.

 

[307bball]

Also, you do realize usu ended the football season in the t25 twice since 2018, right? We haven't ended ranked in this century. Their bball program is easily top 4-5 in mwc.

whooo....top 4-5 of MWC...I'll start printing the banners.

I hear you on the finer points of the differences between UW and these other programs I pretty much agree on the direction of them but you have the magnitude incorrect. I think you are being careless with your analysis on the football side. UW is obviously better than CSU recently and you have to squiiiint to see the difference between Wyoming football and USU football...basically comes down to a conf championship win vs loss, plus one more cruddy bowl appearance. I'm not saying they don't matter...I'm saying they are not needle-movers relating to getting included positively in conference realignment. You seem to think they are.

Don't know if it matters to the conference decision makers but If I'm a random football fan...what experience would I have liked to have had cheering on my team for the last 10 years? Wyoming, CSU or USU? CSU is obviously #3 there... What about the next 10 years?..that is tougher but if I put down my brown and gold glasses it switches to Wyoming being #3 due, in large part, to being perceived as having been left behind by the other two and secondarily not having confidence in the head man. No guarantee about what is going to happen...just the vibe right now.

Here is a thought experiment. Imagine Wyoming and CSU's athletic competitive results having switched places over the last 10 years...everything else stays the same. Does Wyoming get invited with solid/good Olympic sports, a cellar dwelling football program, and a basketball program with some recent modest success? My answer his hell no....but those results got CSU the call. What do you think?

Why are you so committed to making these obviously turdy programs into juggernauts? Is this a Burman thing? You can call USU and CSU athletic programs turds and still be critical of Burman if you want to... in fact it clarifies his failings. It does not shield him at all if we were not considered for inclusion over those two specifically even if the non-competitive reasons for their inclusion were largely out of his control. You already have said that the path to us being included was to have had better results and his hiring/retention strategies were terrible in that regard. That put us on the path to where we are today. All sorts of attendance records, donations, and shiny new buildings and nothing to show for it.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

1) I've already said csu was on a competitive fine line. If we had the same investment level and resume' and they had our investment level and resume'? I think we get the nod.

2) usu has a championship and 2 t25 finishes in football. They are relatively consistently challenging for or earning mwc bball champs and tourney bids. They've done more in 8 years than we've done in a 1/4 century.

It's not that hard. We're nowhere near a top 5 MWC athletic dept and 5th football program that's unlikely to continue with Bohl's retirement.

Until you can demonstrate you're a top 5 athletic department with metrics and then were snubbed, I'm going with we're snubbed because we suck.

 

[PorkerPoke]

UW is obviously better than CSU recently and you have to squiiiint to see the difference between Wyoming football and USU football...basically comes down to a conf championship win vs loss, plus one more cruddy bowl appearance.

For grins here are the traitors records and the rest of the MWC for 2013-2024. 2013 was the first year USU participated in the MWC:

Overall
Boise 114-41 .735
SDSU 94-61 .606
AFA 88-58 .603
Fresno 85-65 .567
USU 80-66 .548
UW 69-76 .445
CSU 66-77 .431
Nev 63-84 .428
SJSU 60-84 .417
Hawaii 60-93 .392
UNLV 56-88 .389
UNM 47-94 .333



MWC games
Boise 77-15 .837
SDSU 60-33 .645
Fresno 54-39 .581
USU 50-38 .568
AFA 51-40 .567
CSU 46-45 .506
UW 42-51 . 452
SJSU 41-52 .441
Nev 40-56 .417
UNLV 40-58 .408
Hawaii 33-62 .347
UNM 24-70 .255

The MWC game number disparity is due to the 2020 season.

Technically if you squiiint () you can see Wyoming inching past only CSU in overall since USU joined the MWC. At the rate Wyoming wins conference games it will take until 2027 to get to 50 MWC wins to equal what USU did from 2013-2024 and until 2026 to catch CSU’s numbers.

Other than AFA the traitors left the bottom feeders behind. The results are a big part of the argument. Take those numbers for the media deal MWC and get your members a big slice of the pie.

 

[307bball]

For grins here are the traitors records and the rest of the MWC for 2013-2024. 2013 was the first year USU participated in the MWC:

Overall
Boise 114-41 .735
SDSU 94-61 .606
AFA 88-58 .603
Fresno 85-65 .567
USU 80-66 .548
UW 69-76 .445
CSU 66-77 .431
Nev 63-84 .428
SJSU 60-84 .417
Hawaii 60-93 .392
UNLV 56-88 .389
UNM 47-94 .333



MWC games
Boise 77-15 .837
SDSU 60-33 .645
Fresno 54-39 .581
USU 50-38 .568
AFA 51-40 .567
CSU 46-45 .506
UW 42-51 . 452
SJSU 41-52 .441
Nev 40-56 .417
UNLV 40-58 .408
Hawaii 33-62 .347
UNM 24-70 .255

The MWC game number disparity is due to the 2020 season.

Technically if you squiiint () you can see Wyoming inching past only CSU in overall since USU joined the MWC. At the rate Wyoming wins conference games it will take until 2027 to get to 50 MWC wins to equal what USU did from 2013-2024 and until 2026 to catch CSU’s numbers.

Other than AFA the traitors left the bottom feeders behind. The results are a big part of the argument. Take those numbers for the media deal MWC and get your members a big slice of the pie.

I was just looking at the last 10 years since it was a round number...UW is not behind CSU over that span but either way we are talking about .500 football programs at best in the case of UW and CSU, and barely over that for USU.

The threshold in football performance for the conference between the good teams and the rest is above all three programs (USU, CSU, and Wyo) IMO. For me, the good modern MWC teams in football are BSU, SDSU, Fresno, and AFA. the rest are mediocre to bad. If you want to include USU in the "good" programs...I guess you can....my guess is that group of people skew heavily in a certain religious demographic though.

Using the list you posted...I'm including BSU and SDSU in my conference partner wish list for sure...then Fresno... but it gets muddy after that. If I'm creating a new conference I'm not messing around with the others based only on this ranking....but we all know that is not all this is based on.

 

[307bball]

1) I've already said csu was on a competitive fine line. If we had the same investment level and resume' and they had our investment level and resume'? I think we get the nod.

Don't change the question...everything stays the same....but we have CSU's competitive results and they have ours. You think we get the nod?
I thought this was about competitive results that we all agree is Burman's fault....are you giving him a pass now? It's about investment level? That's not in his control.

2) usu has a championship and 2 t25 finishes in football. They are relatively consistently challenging for or earning mwc bball champs and tourney bids. They've done more in 8 years than we've done in a 1/4 century.

It's not that hard. We're nowhere near a top 5 MWC athletic dept and 5th football program that's unlikely to continue with Bohl's retirement.

Until you can demonstrate you're a top 5 athletic department with metrics and then were snubbed, I'm going with we're snubbed because we suck.

It is amusing how far Cowboy's fan's expectations have fallen.

It's not top five...we needed to have been firm top 2 or we get snubbed. Maybe top 3 if there were a big drop after that.. Anything less than that and it's a turd hunt and the door is open to all the factors that are outside of our control.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

Don't change the question...everything stays the same....but we have CSU's competitive results and they have ours. You think we get the nod?
I thought this was about competitive results that we all agree is Burman's fault....are you giving him a pass now? It's about investment level? That's not in his control.

It is amusing how far Cowboy's fan's expectations have fallen.

It's not top five...we needed to have been firm top 2 or we get snubbed. Maybe top 3 if there were a big drop after that.. Anything less than that and it's a turd hunt and the door is open to all the factors that are outside of our control.

I'm not sure why this is hard. You start with football and things that matter. Conference chips, records, t25 appearances etc. That's clearly bsu, suds, fresno and usu. Then you move onto the next items. AD investment is up there and bball. They literally put investment requirements in their bylaws which shows that's important to them.

Thus, to answer your question, if you swap csu's department and ours which includes investment, then we get in.

Like I said, how you can ignore the fact that we're a bottom 3 athletic department as the reason we're overlooked is beyond me. If you can't start with "we're a top 5 athletic department in performance and investment" then you need to stop with any other analysis of why we're overlooked.

 

[307bball]

I'm not sure why this is hard. You start with football and things that matter. Conference chips, records, t25 appearances etc. That's clearly bsu, suds, fresno and usu. Then you move onto the next items. AD investment is up there and bball. They literally put investment requirements in their bylaws which shows that's important to them.

Thus, to answer your question, if you swap csu's department and ours which includes investment, then we get in.

Like I said, how you can ignore the fact that we're a bottom 3 athletic department as the reason we're overlooked is beyond me. If you can't start with "we're a top 5 athletic department in performance and investment" then you need to stop with any other analysis of why we're overlooked.

Yep...if you keep moving the line down...you get from BSU to SDSU to ... to.... to....to... to..USU! I have heard so much bashing on USU in these forums .... calling them every terrible thing that can be dreamt up....so color me surprised to read your "glowing" description of their program.

I also see your not interested in answering the CSU question in good faith ... I can only assume that is because you believe, deep down, that if Wyoming and CSU swapped competitive results, Wyoming is still not getting invited. Burman has seen a lot of the metrics get better under his tenure except for the one that mattered....wins. Now...you may be changing your tune and talking about how the AD was not invested in properly...poor Burman..if only he had the proper commitment. I call BS on that. He didn't have to hang on to bad coaches so long and some of his hires were perplexing even before he hung on to them too long.

I'm not confused as to why Wyoming did not get invited....we are a train wreck of the first order. If I'm sitting in an office at BSU or Oregon State I want nothing to do with Wyoming.

 

[PorkerPoke]

If I'm creating a new conference I'm not messing around with the others based only on this ranking....but we all know that is not all this is based on.

I concur to the extent that USU desired to be included and a presence in Utah with two P teams along with the desperation of needing 8 teams helped the USU case along with they were not a bottom feeder in football or basketball. Same really for CSU who has been clamoring for the big time residing in the state of Colorado with AFA not considered in the same way for the future of college football and especially not basketball.

If I am assembling a new conference and the MWC was the only option to choose from the only “dud” I would include besides the 5 traitors would have been UNLV. Whatever happened there where supposedly UNLV said no I have to conclude the Rebels had enough financial issues to commit to paying the $18 million exit for the unknown and the GOR $$$ promise was too alluring to pass up.

Up to $31 million for UNLV and AFA with a $21 million minimum take away paying $18 million makes for a potential of gaining up to $49 million to stay. The traitors felt paying $18 million was worth the separation.

 

[307bball]

I concur to the extent that USU desired to be included and a presence in Utah with two P teams along with the desperation of needing 8 teams helped the USU case along with they were not a bottom feeder in football or basketball. Same really for CSU who has been clamoring for the big time residing in the state of Colorado with AFA not considered in the same way for the future of college football and especially not basketball.

If I am assembling a new conference and the MWC was the only option to choose from the only “dud” I would include besides the 5 traitors would have been UNLV. Whatever happened there where supposedly UNLV said no I have to conclude the Rebels had enough financial issues to commit to paying the $18 million exit for the unknown and the GOR $$$ promise was too alluring to pass up.

Up to $31 million for UNLV and AFA with a $21 million minimum take away paying $18 million makes for a potential of gaining up to $49 million to stay. The traitors felt paying $18 million was worth the separation.

I too would have swapped Unlv for CSU. By the sounds of it they wanted both....and from your analysis, it seems like that would have been really bad for the MWC right? The reasons for inclusion for either would not have a ton to do with how good they are....neither have been much recently.