http://espn.go.com/blog/pac10/post/_/id/6381/pac-10-will-consider-expansion With potential conference expansion again all the rage, first-year Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott knew the question would be coming. What about Pac-10 expansion? "Expansion is something we will take a look at," Scott said Wednesday. For expansion enthusiasts that will sound like a more open-minded approach than long-time commissioner Tom Hansen, whom Scott replaced over the summer. But don't make plans for a Pac-10 Championship Game just yet. Yes, expansion is something Scott will look at with a "fresh set of eyes" -- his phrase -- and the timing makes sense because the conference television contracts expire after the 2011-12 academic year. But this is nothing new -- he said the same in July before Pac-10 media day -- and the same reasoning and sentiments that school and conference administrators have used to resist calls for expansion in the past remain entrenched, so nothing is imminent. "There's a pretty high hurdle for us, academically, athletically, geographically," Scott said. "We're hard-pressed to really see how you improve upon the structure of the Pac-10 as it is with five sets of natural rivals in four states." Expansion is a subject that has repeatedly come up since the mid-90s when the conference courted Texas and Colorado before they joined the new Big 12, but the Big Ten's public declaration this week that it is considering adding a member to reach the 12-program threshold necessary to split into divisions and hold a championship game, makes the issue relevant again. If the the Big Ten joins the Big 12, ACC and SEC as a 12-team conference that would leave the Pac-10 and eight-team Big East looking, well, smaller. Scott said that bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, particularly in terms of revenue per program. If adding teams means a potentially smaller slice of the conference revenue pie, it will be hard to sell expansion to the membership. The first issue is the small pool of potential candidates. The teams most often mentioned -- mostly by fans -- are Utah, BYU, Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado, Fresno State, Nevada, UNLV and TCU. A couple of those are intriguing possibilities, but a couple wouldn't even be considered. Programs need to be an academic and athletic match. That means admission standards and research accreditation are issues. On the athletic side, it's not just about football. How strong is the entire athletic department? Recall the Pac-10 is the "Conference of Champions" and Olympic and women's sports are part of that foundation. Then there's the biggest issue: Money. If the Pac-10 were to expand, it wants that expansion to mean more of it. There's widespread concern that a number of the potential candidates don't come from markets that will increase revenue. Bringing in Utah and Colorado might be a winner (Salt Lake City and Denver markets), and at least one Pac-10 athletic director said that's the most likely scenario. Of course, prying Colorado away from the Big 12 might not be easy. TCU, perhaps? There are issues -- distance being an obvious one -- but Pac-10 coaches would salivate over a bigger potential recruiting footprint in Texas. What Scott has or will shortly realize: There are no slam-dunk solutions that will make everyone cheer. There will be enthusiasts for expansion and there will be skeptics. What's clear is there should be a renewed sense of urgency over the matter because Scott expects the new TV deals to be long-term contracts. That might mean expansion or not by 2012. "The most logical time for that is when you're going to sell your media rights," Scott said. "This is essentially the shop window, so this would be a very natural time to consider it, if we are going to consider it."
To me Utah and BYU make the most sense, if you think about it the Pac 10 works in pairs when they schedule basketball games. Granted it's a football move but you have everything in pairs. Wazzou, UDub OSU, Oregon Stanford, Cal USC, UCLA ASU, U of A However Denver and SLC are fairly close but I think Colorado would be nuts to leave the Big 12. I know UNLV has no shot so I'd just prefer to see the MWC expand and add Fresno, Boise and Hawaii or Houston.
I'm with you on this...however, I don't want to see Hawaii in an expanded Mountain West. Travel costs add up when you have to make the trip to Hawaii every other season.
UNLV has essentially that type of setup as it is but BYU would never let Hawaii in. They were going to be in the original and BYU crushed it. You'd also have to think that with 12 teams you won't play them every year either so that's one positive. The talk is they want a Texas school so they can add a travel partner for TCU. That school is Houston. UNLV oddly enough wants UNR in, honestly I hate them but an extra W on basketball schedule works for me. Honestly this would put serious presure on the MWC to expand because they coudl get into the BCS mix if they were to add Boise. They're on the cusp now and adding Boise I would think would need to put them in.
Mountain West needs to add Houston and Reno. Two emerging programs in football that will bring respect.
Nevada is not an emerging program. Once Ault loses players like Colin Kaepernick and Vaia Taua, that team will go back to mediocrity.
Because unlike CUSA the MWC is close to getting a deal done that would get them into the BCS. They are under review and TCU looking like a Top 3 team is only helping that push. The BCS did them a major disservice but only because they were scared the the Frogs would beat Florida. The best news is TCU is going to be even better next year so we may have our 1st ever NON-BCS team winning a mythical national title.
They've been decent a long time though, they've never been great and I think had the played ND later in the year they would have won that game. For soem reason those faggots up north always start slow.
That was only in basketball, UCLA and Arizona were terrified to play UNLV. They didn't want to get shown up a Big West School. It's funny because Tark never even recruited those types of kids. He never brought in a High School All- American in all his years at UNLV.
