MWC Expanding Again?

Even though Commissioner Craig Thompson has said he is leaving the light on for BYU, there is a rumor that the MW may raid Conference USA to expand to 14 members.  The reason for this could be another move to keep Boise State happy.

Being in the MW Mountain has left BSU without their old natural (?) rivals, Nevada and Fresno State.  I don't know why Fresno is a 'Natural' rival as California and Idaho don't exactly neighbor each-other, but trust me on this, it's true.  Besides, everybody naturally wants revenge on Utah State, not because they are in the neighboring state but because, well, who wants Utah State as a rival?  (Just kidding Aggies, please don't egg my house.)  Adding two teams from Texas will allow BSU to move to the MW-West.  The alignment would look like this.

MW Mountain

Air Force
Colorado State
New Mexico
Rice
Texas El Paso
Utah State
Wyoming

MW West

Boise State
Fresno State
Hawaii (football only)
Nevada
Nevada Las Vegas
San Diego State
San Jose State

I am not sure how the scheduling will go, but usually in a 14-team conference, you play 8 conference games on a 6+2 basis.  This mean you will play everyone home and home in the other division once every 14 years, while playing everyone in your division every season.  Not sure if the MW will break up into divisions for a 13-team basketball conference.  However, there have been rumors of adding a non-football school for non-football sports for years.

Perhaps the MW is open to allowing BYU to be independent in football, but allowing the Cougars to move their other sports back.  They weren't open to this idea when BYU bolted 6 years ago.  If they did, would you have USU and BYU in different divisions?  All of this is doubtful.  Rather, I would expect a public school from a larger western city that does not have football right now like Long Beach State or UC-Santa Barbara.  Let me emphasize public as BYU and TCU are the only private schools ever in the MWC, although Rice is private.

If you compare this to the failed 16-team WAC, you will notice more similarities than differences.  Boise State, Nevada and Utah State were never in the 16-team WAC.  BYU, Utah, TCU, Tulsa and SMU were.

Even though Craig Thompson says the door is open for BYU to come back, their actions are not.  Are they trying to recreate the old 16-team WAC?  If the MW were serious about leaving the door open for BYU, then you would see Air Force, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State and Wyoming on BYU's independent schedule.  Right now, these schools are missing.  It seems like they don't want to have anything to do with BYU.  And BYU would want to slip in a division with their oldest rival in the conference, Utah State, and other teams that BYU has played a lot: New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado State and Air Force.  (And possibly UTEP as well.)

This is also how I think things will trickle down.  Once UTEP and Rice are gone, C-USA will need to decide how to act.  If they decide to remain at 14 members, C-USA will look to add teams from the Sun Belt to replace Rice and UTEP.  The list of candidates would include:

New Mexico State
Arkansas State
Texas State
Appalachian State
Georgia State
Georgia Southern

The list doesn't likely include Idaho as the Vandals are too far out of the footprint of the conference and they would not be looking for a football-only member.

Conference USA also may choose to remain at 12 members with the loss of two and simply realign divisions.

As for the future of Idaho, it seems destined that the Big Sky Conference and the Vandals are due for a permanent football reunion at some point in the near future.  Idaho averaged 11,846 in attendance in 2015.

Update: for now, the MWC will not expand.