BYU Cougars, It's Your Move

In a stunning move, the Mountain West Conference has struck back, stealing two key schools from the WAC and potentially leaving BYU without a conference for its non-football sports to play in.

Fresno State and Nevada joined the MWC Wednesday night, just hours after reports surfaced that BYU will leave the conference to go independent in football and join the WAC in other sports.

The move leaves just six schools remaining in the WAC with Hawaii, San Jose State, New Mexico State, Louisiana Tech, Idaho, and Utah State. That’s not a very attractive group to hook up with, and it's not enough schools to form a conference for football.

So what is BYU’s next move?

With a depleted WAC, will the Cougars move forward with reported plans to become an independent in football? Will the Cougars elect to remain a full member of the Mountain West and seek their own TV contract?

Will they look to the West Coast Conference for a home for their other sports? Will they try to coax UNLV and SDSU to play in the WAC? Will they keep the status quo in football and throw in on a 12-team Mountain West?

BYU has 11 days before the September 1 deadline to notify the MWC that they are leaving the league.

Notes

In what was a crazy day for BYU sports news on Wednesday, reports surfaced of the Cougars’ plans to go independent, the MWC struck back in a hasty invite of FSU and Nevada, Uona Kaveinga’s NCAA appeal was denied, and BYU landed one of the top recruits in the state of Utah in American Fork offensive lineman Ryker Mathews.

Here’s looking forward to Thursday…