WAC to bring in NMSU and USU into the fold.

[Peruna_Ate_My_Rolex]

Looks like the WAC has started to cover it's losses.

TULSA, Okla. -- New Mexico State and Utah State will leave the Sun Belt Conference for the WAC in time for the 2005-06 season, a source close to the negotiation told ESPN.com Wednesday night.

An official announcement is expected later Thursday.

New Mexico State and Utah State will participate in the sports that the WAC sponsors, notably Division I-A football and men's and women's basketball. Utah State plays all sports but football in the Big West, but would move over to the WAC as a full member.

New Mexico State and Utah State will replace two of the three departing WAC members -- SMU, Tulsa and Rice. Those three schools will leave the WAC for Conference USA for the 2005-06 season. Conference USA added the three WAC schools to help offset the expected loss of Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette, DePaul and possibly South Florida to the Big East.

An official announcement from the Big East and Conference USA is expected in early November, after the Big East presidents meet Nov. 4 in Philadelphia.

The WAC's membership would have dropped from 10 to seven if the league didn't make a move before the departures of SMU, Tulsa and Rice in 2005.

The WAC might not be done, though.

The WAC will wait to see if Louisiana Tech is either gobbled up by Conference USA or moves to the Sun Belt. If La. Tech goes, then any further WAC expansion won't include the Central Time Zone. If the school stays, then the WAC is likely to add North Texas out of the Sun Belt in the coming months.

If the WAC loses any member to the Mountain West -- like Boise State, Fresno State or Hawaii -- then the WAC will add Idaho as a replacement. The eight-team MWC might add at least one more school and is looking at TCU out of Conference USA and/or a WAC school if it is going to add.

The WAC membership in 2005-06 would look like this, pending any further additions or subtractions: Fresno State, Hawaii, Boise State, Nevada, San Jose State, UTEP, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State and Utah State.

New Mexico State and UTEP, two rivals separated by less than an hour's drive, would be in the same league for the first time in nearly 40 years. Utah State has tried in vain to get into the WAC for over a decade, at one point hoping to join former WAC members and in-state rivals Utah and BYU. Those two schools since left for the MWC.

The Sun Belt would have only six remaining football members -- Arkansas State, North Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Idaho, Louisiana-Monroe and Middle Tennessee State -- after the departures of New Mexico State and Utah State. The basketball league wouldn't take as hard a hit. Idaho, like Utah State, doesn't play men's basketball in the Sun Belt but rather the Big West. The Sun Belt would still be a strong mid-major league in men's basketball with 10 members: Western Kentucky, Arkansas-Little Rock, Middle Tennessee, Arkansas State, Florida International, Louisiana-Lafayette, South Alabama, Denver, New Orleans and North Texas.

The conference expansion and realignment began with the ACC taking Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East last June and then adding a 12th team in Boston College out of the Big East two weeks ago.

[Sam I Am]

The WAc needs to shift westward. La TEch ought to find a central time zone conference.The Sun Belt may be a casualty of the conference realignments. :whistling:

[Water Pony]

If I were advising WAC and Sun Belt, I would simply divide the schools west (PT and MT)and east (CT and ET)and rationalize the respective memberships that way.

<small>[ 10-23-2003, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Water Pony ]</small>