Yet another WAC disbanding blog post

The Denver Post recently published an article with WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd's comments about the future of his dying league: http://www.denverpost.com/colleges/ci_21002204/western-athletic-conference-considers-becoming-non-football-league

Personally, I think Hurd owes it to the universities he works for to be doing all he can to find them homes in new conferences rather than trying to rebuild a conference that is truly on its last leg and any replacement schools they brought in are either A) serious flight risks or B) lousy programs.

I think Hurd should be doing all he can to urge MWC member Air Force to become a football affiliate of the Big East and take their Olympic sports to the West Coast Conference.  This does a number of things to help out his remaining members:

The WCC will need a 12th school with the admission of Air Force.  Denver  ( a WAC school) is the logical choice as they are a natural travel partner for the Falcons.

Air Force going to the Big East for football insures that Boise St and San Diego St will indeed go East as well thus preventing the MWC from reabsorbing them and getting to 12 members which would spell disaster for the remaining WAC schools as the MWC door would essentially be slammed closed, thus preventing anyone from ever getting in.

Air Force's departure opens a spot in the MWC for New Mexico St, the slightly better of the two remaining football schools.

I am also working under the assumption that Boise St will weasel/bribe their way into the Big West. There is a slight caveat here: should Boise take a MWC member with them  to the BWC (as opposed to AFA going to the WCC) it probably means that New Mexico St still slips into the MWC but Denver gets left behind.

This leaves Seattle and Idaho.  My guess is that Idaho will cozy up to the idea of FCS and the Big Sky thus landing them a stable home.

As for Seattle, they are likely the only team that gets left out (for the time being).  There is a chance they can work something out with the Big Sky but my guess is they go back to independent status.  If/when BYU gets an invitation to the Big 12 the Redhawks would naturally assume their spot in the WCC.

My guess is that every school I mentioned above would much rather be in the hypothetical conference home I placed them in as opposed to sitting around in a depleted WAC  (well, maybe not Seattle as they'd be stuck as an independent).  The future WAC, in the best case scenario, that is if everyone stays, would look like this:

Seattle
Idaho
Boise St
Utah Valley
Denver
Cal St Bakersfield
New Mexico St
Texas-PanAm
New Orleans

It is very likely that at least one of those schools will get an invitation to go somewhere else before this league could even coalesce.  My advice to the schools left would be "Keep trying to claw your way off this sinking ship before you decide to let on more passengers."