I wouldn’t be surprised if conversations with NMSU occurred. My guess is that the Big West wanted travel subsidies and the Aggies said go to hell.

If sports are played this fall but the Cal State's are sidelined, the Big West will need one more member (likely outside CA) to volunteer for a year.

UC honcho Janet Napolitano is pushing for all online this fall, which she strongly supports. Expect that soon. She has more egos to massage the the CSU leader.

That means Cal and UCLA wont be participating in the Pac-12 this fall either. (Stanford wont and LA is in lock down likely to October which rules out USC as well).

Here's how you can polish your reputation: Get every school to have a football program and move up to FBS. (Seriously, the Big West was once a Div. I-A football league before most, if not all, of their member schools either dropped down to FCS or got rid of football altogether. They should've found a way to keep football. That way, when the WAC dropped football, the Big West could've gotten Idaho and NMSU to join. Oh, well. Hindsight and all that.)