The Denver Post

john henderson

Look of WAC changes again
By John Henderson
Denver Post Sports Writer

Sunday, June 06, 2004 -

The news barely made a blip on the sports radar of the Western Athletic Conference's home base here in the Denver area. Forget Chicago, New York or, an old WAC stronghold, Texas.

"IDAHO JOINS WAC."

No, the WAC isn't terribly significant around here anymore, and Friday's announcement that the WAC completed another move didn't make former members Colorado State, Air Force and Wyoming sit up and take notice. The fallout from the exploding national landscape finally has settled around the WAC office.

Again, you won't recognize the WAC. Since eight WAC schools broke off to form the Mountain West Conference, which began operating July 1, 1999, the WAC has changed three of the past five years. The WAC now is nine schools. The latest is a minor overhaul that, for marketability, will be one of the challenges for WAC commissioner Karl Benson.

Out go Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso and Tulsa. For the 2005-06 school year, all will go to Conference USA, which was ravaged by the Big East, which was ravaged by the Atlantic Coast Conference. Down the food chain is the WAC, which will welcome New Mexico State, Utah State and, now, Idaho.

This isn't exactly the ACC bringing in Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech. As for markets, it's not even Rice, SMU and Tulsa. New Mexico State is in Las Cruces, a pleasant town but about 45 miles northwest of El Paso. "Forty-five miles northwest of El Paso" just sounds frightening.

Utah State is in Logan, near the Idaho border and the hardest to reach of Utah's schools. Idaho is in Moscow, which, combined with neighboring Pullman, Wash., home of Washington State, is one of the most remote outposts in college athletics. The WAC essentially is replacing the markets of Dallas (SMU), Houston (Rice) and Tulsa with rural New Mexico, rural Utah and rural Idaho.

"Sometimes markets are overrated," Benson said Friday from Half Moon Bay, Calif., where the WAC held its annual presidents meetings. "It's not how big the markets are but if they can deliver the markets. SMU and Rice are good members, but they haven't delivered those media markets."

That's the rub. SMU's football team was 0-12 last season, and Rice recently came within an administrative gavel from dropping its Division I-A status. But on the field, the swap is not a wash. In Tulsa, the WAC loses the nation's most improved football program and one of its hottest young coaches, Steve Kragthorpe.

At UTEP, new coach Mike Price actually took Washington State to two Rose Bowls, which earned him an ill-fated appointment at Alabama.

UTEP won't go 2-11 for long.

New Mexico State, Utah State and Idaho all went 3-9 last year and have combined for two winning seasons the past five years, in which they have a combined 60-110 record.

But Benson had other motivation. The conference stretches 4,000 miles from Honolulu to Ruston, La. (Lewis & Clark couldn't have handled the

Hawaii-to-Louisiana Tech road trip.) The Western Athletic Conference had lost its Western. With the Texas schools and Tulsa bolting and Benson unable to lure Houston and Tulane, he needed to strengthen his Western base.

"We were half expecting Louisiana Tech to go to Conference USA and UTEP to remain," Benson said. "Had that happened, we'd really have been a Western league."