Denver, we hardly knew you. The Pioneers have left the WAC for the Summit League, looking for something a little more stable. But the WAC then added Grand Canyon University, a successful Division II non-football athletic program. GCU has been looking to move to Division I for the last several years and joined the WAC after they were unsuccessful at getting into the WCC.
The WAC seems to have revealed it's strategy for survival in luring GCU. It seems to be going after non-football Western Division II programs looking to move up. Here is a list of potential WAC invitees which have more than 10,000 undergrads and are in large enough cities to support Division programs.
Alaska Anchorage
Western Washington (Bellingham, WA)
MSU Billings (Billings, MT)
Northwest Nazarene (Nampa, ID)
Seattle Pacific
Chico State (Chico, CA)
CSU East Bay (Hayward, CA)
Cal Poly Pamona
CSU Dominguez Hills (Carson, CA) Note: on campus is the Home Depot Center, home of the LA Galaxy of MLS
CSU-Los Angeles
CSU-San Bernardino
UC-San Diego (Recently, the student body rejected an increase in student fees to move to Division I)
Tarelton State (Stephenville, TX)
Texas A&M Commerce
San Francisco State
Metro State (Denver, CO)
There are probably at least a dozen others.
For those of you who lost your scorecard, here is who is left in the WAC:
New Mexico State
Utah Valley
Seattle
CSU-Bakersfield
Grand Canyon
Need 2 more schools to maintain NCAA auto bid status. Probably had better add at least 3 or 4.
1 comment:
for accuracy sake,it is UC-San Diego and Tarleton State
Post a Comment