Conference Realignment: The WAC Looking at Teams To Replace Boise State

Just a few days removed from Boise State jumping ship from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West, WAC commissioner Karl Benson has been forced to go to the drawing board.

Benson, even before Boise State's impending departure, told the media that a few select schools would be a good fit for the WAC if they ever needed to replace departing teams.

Unfortunately for the WAC, those invitations will need to be sent out and the teams that Benson is talking about aren't going to make the conference any stronger.

The University of Montana, Sacramento State, Portland State, and UC-Davis are all teams that Benson is mulling over as to whether they'll be sent invitations to join the Western Athletic Conference.

When Boise State made the move to Mountain West, not surprising a whole lot of people, my first thought was to think of the teams that could possibly replace Boise State and not have the conference lose a whole lot of ground, or respect for that matter.

I immediately thought of teams like SMU, Houston, Rice, UTEP, or even Tulsa, all teams out of Conference USA. But, as a source out of Fresno told me yesterday, none of these teams would accept an invitation to a conference that's looking like a step backwards.

Ouch.

While SMU and Houston both have football programs that are on their way up, saying Rice, UTEP, and Tulsa would be taking a step backwards by joining the WAC should tell Commissioner Benson just how bad his conference has become in the eyes of those around the college football world.

The only respectable teams, with all due respect to the rest, are Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawaii, with honorable mention to Idaho who seemed to be on their way up as well.

The other insulting line came from the fact that the Mountain West, even though they may lose Utah to the Pac-10, will have absolutely no interest in replacing Utah with another WAC school. The low blows just keep coming.

The one coach that has to be hanging his head, wondering what else he has to do to gain respect, is Fresno State head coach Pat Hill.

Hill has been wanting to get out of the WAC for years, scheduling the toughest teams he can think of to prove that they can play with teams outside their own conference.

The only problem is, while Fresno State has come up with a few notable victories over the years, their struggles inside their own conference all but killed their chances of being where Boise State is right now.

After all the efforts made by Hill in scheduling teams like Wisconsin, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, LSU, USC, etc., it still wasn't enough to gain his team enough respect or notoriety to earn an invitation to a bigger conference.

While there's no question that the Bulldogs would be able to play in the Mountain West, especially against the likes of New Mexico, San Diego State, Colorado State, and a few others, Fresno State has no choice but to stay in a sinking conference...a conference that may have lost any respect it still had with the departure of the dominant Boise State football program.

While I don't know much about any of the schools that WAC commissioner Karl Benson is looking to invite, I do know that they don't bring much competition to the top teams in the conference.

Where Montana State has a disadvantage against Portland State and Sacramento State is the size of the television markets.

According to The Nielsen Company, Portland State and Sacramento State hold the No. 20 and 22 markets, respectively, while Montana ranks as the 166th television market.

Montana's budget of $13 million in 2009 is well below the WAC average of $20 million in expenses per school.

I'm disappointed in Boise State's departure but I don't blame them for doing what's best for them. They made a move that they needed to make, and it's a move that will definitely pay off for them in the long run.

They leave a conference that wasn't doing them any good and, unfortunately, it's just going to continue to get worse if Benson begins on these other small schools.

Fresno State and the rest of the remaining members of the Western Athletic Conference better get used to being here, because this is where they'll remain unless conferences decide that expanding to super-conferences is a legitimate idea.

Until then, the WAC will be just another little conference out west that no one really cares about.