Yesterday, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson talked about exploring all options in regards to conference realignment for the Mountain West and he mentioned that the football-only merger between Conference USA and Mountain West is again a possibility. The Mountain West is now taking this to the next level by having the athletic directors meet in Dallas next week to discuss the potential merger with Conference USA.
Colorado State athletic director Paul Kowalczyk is not certain of a mega-league but he is reserving judgement:
"I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear the pros and cons," said Kowalczyk today. "It's a crazy landscape out there right now. Nobody really knows who to trust or what they are going to do, it seems, both from a school and conference standpoint. We'll have to see how this plays out and hear what the proposal might be."
[...]
"Philosophically, I don't know that it's a very wise thing. And I think when you're talking about trying to compete for conference championships, I think it's just a little better to have to compete against eight or nine schools as opposed to 14 or 15 or 16 as the case may be. And that goes for all of the sports. I think those other sports have been forgotten in this process. I just think it's going to be a load."
Ah, common sense is coming out of Kowalczyk by mentioning the logistics of a league that could be over 20 teams. Even though it only encompasses football only getting together for meetings would be an issue, but Kowalczyk said if the two separate leagues work more along the lines of an AFL-NFL partnership then it could work.
Wyoming athletic director also chimed in as well on the situation:
"We've had dialogue all week this week, a small collection of ADs from both leagues," Burman said. "We're going into the meetings in Dallas open-minded with, ‘Where's this going and what can we do to position ourselves better?'"
He also makes some peculiar statements regarding Wyoming's postion in conference realignment:
"We're not in a position where people are calling us to talk about whether we want to be added to leagues," Burman said. ‘Very few people in our league are in that position."
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"It's not as if we're not in demand, and we have to be worried about being run out," Burman said. "We're not in that position at all. We're in good standing within our league, we just need to maintain this league to the best of our ability."
Huh?
I think we can all agree that Wyoming has nothing to worry about joining another league or being removed from the Mountain West.
As for the athletic directors meeting, it seems that the Mountain West is getting serious about merging with C-USA. Having conversation about the leagues future is great, but this merger should be a last resort. These meeting better contain al options and all possible plans.
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