wasn't just to join the WAC with our nonfootball sports but we planned to take along Sand Diego State, UNLV and CSU (I could be wrong on the teams), making a pretty strong basketball conference. This is why Hair Thompson then asked Utah State to join the MWC, which they initially declined. It was all working okay until Fresno and Nevada took the MWC offer and opened the flood gates, killing the WAC and screwing BYU big time and necessitating our joining the WCC as a back up plan. Whether we actually planned to or were capable of taking any other school with us to the WAC (since when did SDSU or UNLV ever doe anything other than irrationally hate us?) it doesn't really matter. In the minds of NM, Wyoming, AFA, TCU and whoever else, we weren't content to just leave the MWC, but we felt compelled to set fire to the conference we started, leaving them out in the cold.
True or not, it is kind of annoying that the lone spark of competence Thompson has shown in his otherwise failure of a career was to kill the WAC to spite BYU.
But of course the real answer is blind, bitter spite. They all suck. They will always suck.