WAC will not have football after this season
The Western Athletic Conference will no longer be a football conference after the completion of the upcoming season, CBSSports.com reported Monday.
Interim WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd confirmed Monday that the WAC will drop football after seeing a number of football schools leave the WAC for other conferences the past two years.
The WAC will become the first Division I conference to drop football since the Southwest Conference ended its existence in 1995. The WAC also becomes the first victim of the conference realignments.
The WAC plans to continue as a conference for other sports, although it's not clear which sports it will have. Only three schools -- current member New Mexico State and two schools that will join the conference next year (University of Denver and Seattle University) -- are in line to be members for all remaining sports.
The University of Idaho announced last week that it will become an independent in football and be a member of the Big Sky for other sports.
"I think that sometime in late July it became apparent that it was unlikely we could continue with football," Hurd told the Denver Post. "We looked at every option we could think of. With the geography we have in terms of schools, it presents a challenge. ... If we can't get enough league members, we can't operate as a conference. We're going to do everything possible to avoid that. There aren't any obvious answers out there."
Five of the current WAC football programs are scheduled to be in a different conference next season. San Jose State and Utah State will be joining the Mountain West, Louisiana Tech andTexas-San Antonio are headed for Conference USA, and Texas State will go to the Sun Belt. Only New Mexico State has yet to schedule a departure.
