False alarm, and nothing to see here.
The Mountain West held its annual mid-year Board of Director meetings in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss league matters with the athletic directors and presidents. One item of keen interest was the report from Dennis Dodd that said the conference was looking at expanding into Texas with the additions of UTEP and Rice.
Thompson also mentioned late last week that "we're leaving the light on" for the possibility of BYU returning to the Mountain West.
After the two-day meetings, the conference is fine with its current set up that has 12 football playing members and 11 on the basketball side. However, the conference will always be monitoring the membership landscape within the NCAA.
"The entire membership expressed great support for the continued development of the Conference," said Commissioner Craig Thompson. "There is genuine excitement about the growth which has transpired in the less than three years under the present alignment."
A reason UTEP and Rice were even mentioned for additional team is that Conference USA's media rights deal is up after the 2015-16 academic year, and that would make them open to change conferences without penalty.
The only team that would change the mind of the conference is that if BYU was a legitimate option to return to the conference. This would require another team to get to 14 for football and the likely candidate would be UTEP to fill that spot.
However, get used to the league set up as it stands for the foreseeable future.