The nation’s largest collegiate conference is on the verge of splitting in half.
Citing the loss of traditional rivalries, rising travel costs and insufficient revenue growth, eight of the 16 Western Athletic Conference schools announced plans Tuesday to form their own league.
Air Force, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah and Wyoming said they will file their intentions to leave the WAC before Sept. 1 as required by league bylaws. They also will ask the NCAA to recognize the new unnamed conference immediately.
“You’ve got a group of eight institutions that are committed to making a new conference work,” said Colorado State President Al Yates, who is also chairman of the WAC board of directors.
“We’ve spent most of our time in conversation trying to respond to the question, `Is there a way to make this 16-team conference work?’ Our conclusion in all that was that there was not.”
New Mexico Athletic Director Rudy Davalos put it more bluntly.
“The 16-team league was not going to work,” he said. “It wasn’t the fault of the commissioner or any school. It was just one of those unmanageable type numbers.”
The schools not planning to leave the WAC are Fresno State, Hawaii, Rice, San Jose State, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian, Texas-El Paso and Tulsa. None was a charter member of the conference when it was formed in 1962.
Presidents of the defecting schools said they will honor their 1998-99 athletic schedules and withdraw from the WAC on June 30, 1999.
Just last June, the WAC had been granted a spot in college football’s new Super Alliance, providing its conference champion was ranked sixth or higher in the final poll.
