WAC Desperately Trying To Survive Expansion

With the sudden departure of Fresno State and Nevada to the Mountain West, the Western Athletic Conference or the WAC as we know it, has become a league desperate to survive with only six teams left after this season.

Without a doubt, the WAC has seen the biggest casualties of college football expansion with Boise State previously joining the Mountain West before Fresno and Nevada set a date for their departure this week.

Luckily for WAC commissioner Karl Benson there are some options to make his league at least an eight-team league that could have some relevance in the world of college football.

The most advantageous option for Benson would to steal FCS powerhouse Montana from the Big Sky Conference.

The Grizzlies have made the FCS playoffs for 17 straight seasons and have won two championships in 1995 and 2001 and would be a huge addition to the competition in the WAC.

The thought of bringing in teams from the Championship Subdivision is something the WAC is used to with the addition of Utah State and New Mexico State in the past decade.

And the Big Sky Conference is the conference to pick teams from not only because of their geography, but also because there are good teams in the conference. In fact, four of the eight teams in the Big Sky finished in the Top 25 of the final FCS poll last season.

If the WAC went after Montana, there would be three different scenarios that would change the format of the WAC.

The first scenario would take the most competitive teams from the Big Sky in Montana, Weber State and Eastern Washington.

The second scenario would take teams based on geographical rivalry adding Montana, Montana State, Idaho State and Weber State. Idaho State's rivalry with Idaho could count more as a conference game and a Weber State-Utah State rivalry would be good for the WAC.

The third scenario would be to kick out Louisiana Tech to cut travel costs and become an eight team league by taking in Montana, Weber State and Idaho State.

The first two scenarios would obviously put the WAC at ten teams but the third scenario makes sense since the money that Boise State's success has generated will no longer be there. And a trip to Ruston, LA every year would be cut out of each team's budget to save money.

No matter what the WAC does, it has to act fast that way the league does not become extinct.