(06-03-2021 03:30 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  What if they had realigned the WAC so the permanent divisions were:

A: UNLV, Utah, BYU, Wyoming, Colorado St, AFA, New Mexico, UTEP

B: Hawaii, San Jose St, Fresno St, San Diego St, Tulsa, SMU, TCU, Rice

travel for division B sucks but if it’s travel a bunch versus lose half your conference I think the schools on the geographic periphery take that deal in 1999.

It would have been a short term arrangement in the long haul. I’d speculate that the Central Time Zone teams end up in a C-USA that looks like this in 2005:

West: Tulsa, TCU, SMU, Rice, Houston, Tulane
East: Memphis, USM, UAB, ECU, UCF, Marshall

Leaving the WAC like this:

West (B): Hawaii, San Diego St, Fresno St, San Jose St, UNLV, UTEP
East (A): BYU, Utah, Wyoming, AFA, Colorado St, New Mexico

No way that passes politically.

There was no good way to have a 16 team WAC for the Airport 5 with Texas/Central schools