Expansion focus solely on Idaho

By David White
The Fresno Bee

It's Idaho or bust.

The University of Idaho is the only remaining candidate as Western Athletic Conference leaders consider expansion at their annual board meeting Thursday and Friday in Half Moon Bay.

The other two candidates, North Texas and Louisiana-Lafayette, excused themselves from consideration last week.

With Idaho the last choice standing, the only question for WAC presidents to settle is whether to vote in a ninth member for the 2005-06 school year or stand pat. Conference expansion will top the agenda.

"That's the primary question at this point," Fresno State president John D. Welty said. "Then, to decide whether or not Idaho has the strength we want to add to the conference." The push for expansion has been forced by the looming departures of Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso and Tulsa, all of which are leaving for Conference USA in 2005.

The WAC has eight members on board for the 2005-06 season: Fresno State, Boise State, Hawaii, Louisiana Tech, Nevada, San Jose State and incoming New Mexico State and Utah State.

Several WAC athletic directors say they prefer nine teams for football scheduling, with each school assigned four home and four away games. In an eight-team setup, half the football teams are left with only three WAC home games.

Programs such as Fresno State, which already struggles to draw visiting nonconference teams, would have to scramble every other year to secure an additional home game to make up for the lost revenue.

"We need the four home games," Bulldogs football coach Pat Hill said. "It'll be hard to get another home game every other year. We have a hard enough time getting home games as it is."

For next season, the Bulldogs were able to schedule only one nonconference home game, against Division I-AA Portland State.

Fresno State athletic director Scott Johnson, who supports a nine-team conference for football scheduling, said five home games are a must at Fresno State for financial reasons.

A nine-team conference poses its own problems. In basketball, in which teams are paired for travel purposes, an odd team is left out.

"I think it's important as we weigh the options to consider what's the best way to deal with those scheduling conflicts," Welty said. "Obviously, the conference will be a lot more geographically compact. That is helpful from a standpoint of time it takes to travel as well as some of the costs."

Location is certain to factor in Idaho's favor. The Vandals play in Moscow, a 7-hour drive from in-state rival Boise State.

Several athletic directors from West Coast schools favored Idaho from the beginning in hopes of leaning the WAC back toward the West. Boise State president Bob Kustra, who will serve as chairman of the board, also supports the addition of Idaho.

"The first reason is they are from Idaho," Kustra told the Idaho Statesman last week. "I want to stick up for our own."

Idaho president Tim White will make a presentation to the presidents, who then will discuss their options. Welty expects a decision to be made Friday, though WAC commissioner Karl Benson said a decision could be delayed until after the meetings.

If the WAC expands, a final decision must be made by June 30, the deadline for a school to leave a conference in time for the 2005-06 season.

Idaho's biggest hurdle could be its competitive strength and facilities.

The Vandals' football team, which competes in the Sun Belt Conference, has posted four straight losing seasons with a combined 11-35 record.

The team plays at Kibbie Dome, a 16,000-seat indoor facility. No current WAC football stadium seats fewer than 30,000.

In addition, the men's basketball team has had five straight losing seasons.

The reporter can be reached at dwhite@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6617.

Is there noone else????

What is the likelihood that Idaho will fail to impress the Presidents of the other schools and cause them to not vote for expansion?

Or will they go with whatever Benson recommends?

Is there noone else??

Dawg81 Wrote:Is there noone else??

Afraid not...............unless Montana wants to jump up to Division 1-A. I'd take them in a hearbeat over Idaho.

This was posted on the Mean Green board by a pretty knowledgeable person who does have access to inside info. Kinda interesting.

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The simple truth is that the WAC screwed up big time in dealing with the Belt schools.

If they had wanted to they could have had a 14 team WAC where most of the revenue went to the schools generating the money.

They had a shot at a 12 team WAC with UNT, ASU, ULL, and MTSU though that would have been a harder sell to the Belt schools.

Instead what they offered was a 9 team WAC and felt confident that if UNT thought about saying no that a call to Lafayette would make UNT worry enough to leap and if not then they would take ULL.

That failed so they pitched UNT and ULL to be 10 team WAC. They believed that both would come. When that failed they thought a call to Jonesboro or Murfreesboro would shake someone loose. They pitched to ASU (and from what I hear MTSU as well) thinking that ULL or UNT would blink out of fear that ASU and apparently MTSU would jump.

In the end all four held firm. As far as I'm concerned the MVP's of the Sun Belt are:
Sidney McPhee of MTSU because of his role on the NCAA Board of Directors he was able to get valuable information about future NCAA developments that help reassure everyone of the Belt's future.
Les Wyatt of Arkansas State for being a strong mediator who brought in his own experiences heading a program located in a western league.
Ray Authement of Louisiana Lafayette his familiarity with UL System financial documents were valuable in exposing some overly optimistic descriptions of the revenues and costs of WAC membership along with his own stories of ULL's experiences in the Big West.
Norval Pohl of UNT for investigating the WAC's claims and for his trust in his fellow Sun Belt presidents.

In fact all four should be comended for developing good relationships with their peers that led them to believe that they could in fact trust what the others were telling them about their intentions. Presidents not interested in athletics would likely not have gotten to know each other well enough to have that trust.

I am ecstatic that this effort to add SBC schools failed so miserably..Hopefully they will never try again...Having a conference spread out all over the country is a bad idea..The WAC already took the only two SBC schools that made any sense and may soon add Idaho as well. Idaho is no prize but at least they are geographically reasonable.

No other SBC school solves any problems the WAC as a whole are facing..La Tech is a little behind the 8 ball but that is no reason to just add schools for the sake of adding schools..

Here's to a propsperous and growing WAC and SBC..And here's to hoping that we never have to go through this conference merry go round again.

I don't see how the WAC failed by not being able to add Sun Belt schools. What does adding Arkansas St or Middle Tennessee do for the WAC besides give the Western schools another long road trip? Other than North Texas, what potential does the Sun Belt really have?

The conference presidents and Benson know more about the situation than we do. If La Tech is in it for the long haul than the WAC needs to stay at 8, and figure out what to do for a 6th baseball team.

Idaho doesn't merit an invite, they're simply what's available right now. If the presidents don't foresee La Tech sticking around, then they really have no choice.

I'd rather have the extra OOC football game or the 2 OOC basketball games.