What About Us?: PAC-10, Big Ten To Expand, but What's the Fate of the WAC?

For the past month and change, all of the expansion talk has centered around the Pac-10 as well as the Big Ten. Schools like Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, among others, are ready to jump ship to new conferences, possibly ending the Big XII as we know it.

Every news site and magazine has its own writers talking about this exact topic, offering every opinion you could possibly want.

Most are waiting for Texas, possibly the biggest domino to fall, to decide on where it'll go, which may lead to the biggest chain of events in college football history.

But out west, schools like Fresno State and Boise State of the Western Athletic Conference are on the outside looking in. There's no question that both of these schools would love to jump from the dying ship that is the WAC and become part of a conference that could bring them more revenue for recruiting and more television time.

One man who has been ready to jump ship for some time is Fresno State head coach, Pat Hill. In scheduling games against Oregon and Oregon State he has made his desire to join the Pac-10 clear while showing that his team can compete with those schools.

Unfortunately for Hill, the one team he hasn't been able to compete with is the team from Boise State, who could be the first to jump ship from the WAC.

A few days ago Boise State's president was on hand for meetings with the Mountain West Conference about its plans to expand. It was decided that it would not make any changes until other expansion moves had been made.

Though it came as a disappointment to the Boise State program, they know it doesn't mean other conferences aren't interested in bringing them aboard. The Mountain West may still adopt the Broncos, but it won't budge until the Pac-10 and Big Ten are done making their changes.

Most would think that Boise State leaving the WAC would make the conference even more irrelevant in the national picture than it already is. Wherever the Broncos go, you can be sure that Pat Hill and Fresno State are going to be campaigning for their involvement as well.

At this point the Pac-10 is waiting for decisions from Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech on whether or not they intend to accept the invitation to join its conference.

News came out on Wednesday afternoon that Nebraska became the first Big XII school to officially jump ship, as it accepted an invitation to join the Big Ten conference.

After that decision became official, there was talk that Missouri was about to become the next school to leave the Big XII, but it is refusing to comment on the reports thus far.

Though Texas is a school that everyone is waiting on the edge of his seats for, let's not forget another big school that could bring a huge shakeup in college football—the University of Notre Dame.

We all know the rumors that have been circulating for months on end about the Golden Domers heading to the Big Ten, but there's been nothing official from either the Big Ten or Notre Dame on even getting an invitation.

So, while we wait for the likes of Texas, Notre Dame, and a few others to decide their fates, Boise State and Fresno State await to find out their involvement as well, sitting on the edge of their seats like they're waiting to hear their names called for the March Madness field of 64.

The Bulldogs as well as the Broncos would be two good schools for the Mountain West to invite on top of already having BYU, Utah, and TCU. It would definitely give the conference an argument, after adding a conference championship game, for possibly landing an automatic qualifying spot in the BCS.

For right now though, the two teams will sit in the proverbial "conference expansion" waiting room, hoping for some conference to call their names. Until then, it's business as usual.