For earlier additions in this series...

Part 1:http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=6366959

Part 2:http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=6369396

Through research and sources, I've compiled a pretty hefty collection of history regarding BYU and college football conference alignments. This is not an academic paper, and I'm not going to bother citing specific sources. Take it for what it is: A really long post on a message board. I hope you find it as interesting (and eye-opening) as I have.

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In Part 3, the "Super WAC" rises and falls.  The BCS becomes the de facto force in college football while the ACC and Big East go to war.  The MWC begins a political fight against the BCS, and the infamous story behind The mtn. is discussed.

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From the beginning, it was a risk.  But, it was a calculated one.  And, it made a certain degree of sense at the time.  Capturing TV markets was top priority.  Hosting a lucrative conference championship game was a nice bonus.  Maximizing national appeal was the long-term aim.

The WAC schools were definitely influenced by the realignment mania all around them, but there were a couple of other factors that made them want to act.  First, the conference had just negotiated its first independent TV contract (separate from the CFA) with ESPN/ABC.  The fine print included some nice sweeteners for a championship game.  Second, although expansion was being considered for months prior, four interesting programs became available in late February of 1994 when the SWC blew up.

Houston, Rice, SMU and TCU made for interesting discussion.  None of them had impressive recent resumes, but they were entrenched in the two biggest Texas markets.  And, the association with the defunct Southwest Conference still carried some swagger - something the WAC had always severely lacked.  In 1994, it still hadn't been very long since the SWC was one of the most feared and powerful conferences in college football.  

The theory was that these schools were not struggling as a result of institutional flaws.  Rather, it was just a matter of circumstance and scenery.  Of course, nobody thought a school like Rice was the next Texas powerhouse.  But, maybe a new, kinder conference affiliation would help them be competitive again, and bring a few more fans into that 70,000-seat stadium sitting almost empty in Houston.

UNLV was also a hot name.  Salt Lake City was one of two major mountain-pacific markets that the Pac-10 didn't dominate.  Las Vegas was the other one.  The shimmering desert oasis would make a perfect setting for the envisioned championship game, and the Runnin' Rebels would be a big boost in basketball.  UNLV football was mediocre at best, but the team had only been Division I for about 15 years.  There were reasons for optimism.

And, when the votes were made, optimism won unanimously.  After weeks of speculation, the press release was faxed from Provo - and then retracted.  Someone in the SID's office accidentally jumped the gun and sent the announcement out too early, bringing a scowl from outgoing commissioner Joe Kearney.  Everyone got back in line and held a straight face until April 21, 1994 when the full announcement was officially made by Hawaii president Ken Mortimer.

The WAC was expanding - but not by two or four.  Six new teams were invited.  Three of the SWC refugees were included.  Houston wasn't interested and decided to spend the summer lobbying the SEC.  UNLV was expectedly included.  San Jose State and Tulsa rounded out the party.

On another day, more deliberate action might have been taken.  But, the WAC decided to be proactive and make a statement.  It intended to be the next power conference, and some were already saying that 16 teams was the number of the future.  Objectively, all of the additions could be explained - except for one.  Utah State could not (and still does not) understand why the WAC gave a full invitation to Tulsa, but barely took the trouble to even acknowledge the team in Logan.

"Some institutions we decided not to have serious conversations with," said Mortimer.  The president went on to so that "it stretches the imagination to think that (the bay area, Dallas, and Houston schools) don't bring something to the table in the television market."

Optimism.

In 1996, BYU vs. Wyoming got a higher TV rating than both the Big 12 and SEC title games.  Then the Cougars rolled to the Cotton Bowl.  Colorado State won the Holiday Bowl and finished in the Top 20 the next year.  In 1998, Air Force went 12-1 and landed in the Top 10.  But, the positive vibes ended there.  The six new teams managed a grand total of four winning seasons combined during that stretch - Rice had two of them.

Another harbinger of trouble was that ESPN/ABC made it clear that the TV contract would be worth the same lump sum even if more teams and markets were included.  And, there was grumbling and infighting from the beginning about divisional alignments.  A total lack of satisfaction and consensus resulted in a Mickey Mouse rotation system that left virtually everybody unhappy.

The first big crack appeared during meetings in early May of 1998.  The schools voted on a plan to end rotations and form permanent divisions.  The debate came down to which school (between Air Force and New Mexico) would be put in the western division.  The vote was 13-3 in favor of the plan that separated the Falcons from their front range rivals.  In a rage, Air Force threatened to leave the conference if the plan was put into effect.  Within days, Colorado State president Al Yates was making calls and sending faxes.  Together with his friends at Air Force and Wyoming, he reached out to BYU and Utah, then UNLV, New Mexico and San Diego State.  

On Friday, May 22, eight school presidents inconspicuously met at the Denver airport.  The decision was made final.  The following Tuesday Yates woke Karl Benson up at home to give him the news.  It hit the media minutes later.  Not a single whisper had been leaked.  It was a total blindside to the other eight teams.  Old rivals UTEP, Fresno State, and Hawaii were bitterly left to wonder why they were left behind.  The hard feelings never fully healed.  At annual meetings a few months later, eight people went into one meeting room, eight into another.  There was scarcely an exchange of greetings.

History shows us the fallout, but some say the idea itself wasn't bad, the timing and execution was just off.  In 2011, TCU, SMU, and Houston are all at various stages of football renaissance.  What if that had happened 15 years earlier?  Massive travel costs became a terror to athletic budgets.  What if grumbling over rivalries and partnerships hadn't resulted in things like Tulsa and UNLV being pushed into a division together?

If the teams of, say 2009, were to be transported back to 1994, it is likely that a 16-team WAC would include Boise State instead of Tulsa, Nevada instead of San Jose State, Houston instead of Rice, and New Mexico happily joining a western division with its basketball rivals.  This conference would very likely boast half a dozen Top 25 contenders, four BCS busters, and traditional rivalries to boot.

Surely that would be worth a TV contract and sponsorships that would sooth the financial problems of the mid-90s.

Benson spoke the truth when he said, "It imploded from within, not from the outside."  And, many are still saying that 16 teams is the number of the future.

Later that summer, the new major bowl agreement named the Bowl Championship Series was officially announced.  The big conferences had finally come together with a partnership that didn't include the weaknesses of the bowl coalition and the bowl alliance.  Namely, the BCS included the Rose Bowl as a full member, and all bowls agreed to give up their contractual conference selections if necessary to force a No. 1. vs. No. 2 game.  The Rose Bowl did it because TV contracts finally allowed it, Big 10 teams had finally been burned by split national titles, and it was guaranteed first pick of at-large teams if it lost a school to the title game.

Eighteen months earlier No. 5 BYU had been controversially snubbed by the bowl alliance despite a 13-1 record.  The BCS now included a provision that one team outside the six power conferences could earn an automatic berth in the BCS if it finished ranked high enough - in the Top 6.  The term "non-AQ" was born.

Just weeks before his conference had been dismantled, Benson had watched first hand as the new BCS criteria was formulated and mathematically translated.

"I was in the room when the original BCS formula was created," he said. "BYU's (1996) schedule was used to build the formula.  So, for a team in the future, if you were either equal to or better than BYU, you'd get in."

It took six years and Urban Meyer for a team to finally trigger that clause, although BYU came close to causing another controversy in 2001.  In the meantime, a skirmish broke out on the Atlantic coast that seemed unrelated, but would have a significant impact on the MWCs relationship with the BCS.  On July 1, 2003, the ACC poached Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East.

The ACC had been scheming for some time to expand to 12 and hold a championship game.  With Florida State, Virginia, etc. falling on hard times, the conference had gradually slipped from its position of prominence.  Miami had returned with a vengeance to the national scene in the early 2000s and Virginia Tech had become a fearsome power.  Ironically, Syracuse and Miami were the ACC's first choices, but a combination of stupidity in New York and lobbying by UVA gave the Hokies a seat at the ACC table.  The Big East went to court and lost.  Boston College was invited as the 12th ACC team in October.

The BCS fallout was almost immediate.  From 1998 to 2003, Big East members had played in the BCS championship game three times, and just missed it another year (Miami was ranked No. 3 going into the 2001 Sugar Bowl).  No Big East champion had been ranked lower than 15th since 1998.  In 2004, the year after Miami and VaTech left (BC left in 2005), Big East champion Pitt limped into the Fiesta Bowl with three losses and a No. 21 ranking.  For the MWC, the timing was perfect.  Utah obliterated the Panthers and fully exposed the BCS's new problem.  It also set a perfect stage for Orrin Hatch.  He had led the senate judiciary committee to open formal inquiries into the BCS a year earlier.  The ammunition pile was building.

With the outlook changing in April of 2005, the BCS announced several changes.  A non-AQ team could now qualify with a Top 12 finish instead of Top 6 (BYU had been No. 13 in the 2001 BCS standings before losing to Hawaii), and would also qualify if it was in the Top 16, but ranked higher than the champion of an AQ conference.

That fall, TCU began MWC play.  It had won 10 games in three of the previous five years, re-opened the Texas market, and seemed an ideal compliment to the MWC's newborn crusade for BCS reform.  Little did anyone know, however, that the seeds of the Mountain West Conference's destruction were being sewn right under its feet.

In August of 2004, the MWC had announced a partnership with CSTV.  The preliminary numbers said the deal was worth $82 million over seven years, beginning in 2006.  At the time, the conference felt it had no choice.  During negotiations in the summer of 2004 ESPN had refused to increase its payout, and was demanding that the MWC contractually agree to frequent mid-week night games.

Again, the timing was everything.  This happened before Utah made its historic BCS run, and before BYU made a rapid program recovery under Bronco Mendenhall.  As of the summer of 2004, Coloardo State was as much the flagship program of the conference as anybody.  Not surprisingly, ESPN didn't see the value and wasn't willing to make many concessions.

Another time, another season, and things might have been different.  That story has repeated itself constantly in the last 35 years.  But, given the facts at the time, everyone in the MWC agreed on the course of action.  And, the future looked bright for the fledgling league in 2005.

As the new college football season kicked off, an old, seasoned conference commissioner, hardened by years of battle to survive, sat in his Colorado office and quietly answered a reporter's question:

"My guess is the Mountain West Conference will regret (leaving ESPN)," said Karl Benson.  "You understand how important ESPN is when you're not on it."

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Coming in Part 4...

The MWC TV deal turns sour.  But, negotiations and conversations in Washington, D.C. set the table for the conference to receive AQ status in the near future.  The summer of 2010 sets off another chain reaction that dismantles the core of the MWC, and the fully story of what happened in the weeks leading up to BYU's independence announcement.