With Air Force likely heading to the Big East and Boise State being discussed as a potential football-only member for the Big East, Utah State is lobbying once again to join the Mountain West.Utah State athletic director Scott Barnes said that the Aggies would be interested in replacing the Air Force in the Mountain West.
Adding Utah State makes sense on some level in that they would bring back a portion of Utah which is the largest market the Mountain West had when BYU and Utah was in the league. The fandom in the state of Utah is not great for Utah State, but the football team is getting some more buzz and their basketball team has been very good under Stew Morrill and would compete immediately for a conference title with New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV.
The WAC is still not a stable league for football as they will have only seven football playing members and have been rejected by by multiple Big Sky schools as well as North Texas out of the Sun Belt and that is only the schools publicly mentioned. With the way the Mountain West football teams have performed this year with UNLV and New Mexico not performing well Utah State would not add a great team to the league, but they would not be the worst team to add.
With the potential that Utah State has they would be a decent add to have the Mountain West be a 10-team football league and nine-team basketball league and who knows, maybe the football team can take the step next year and be an above average team.
At this point, the Mountain West can not be picky if they are to add teams especially if Boise State leaves the conference. If Boise State stays the league has some cache and might possibly have a chance to lure a few top C-USA teams, but it would not be a no-brainer for any top teams from another league to jump to the Mountain West.
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