I like to think of myself as a glass half-full, optimistic kind of guy, but it’s difficult to look at what’s happened to the Mountain West Conference without believing the University of Wyoming’s football future is pretty dim.
Opinion
To start, the Mountain West lost four of its dozen teams, leaving UW and the seven remaining schools with diminished significance. On top of that, the Cowboys’ 0-4 record to start the season has left our proverbial glass much less than half-empty. It’s like the sports gods are quenching their thirst at Wyoming’s expense, and leaving fans without much hope of better times ahead.
Four Mountain West teams announced earlier this month they will join the Pacific-12 in 2026: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State. Before this addition, the Pac-12 had only two remaining members — Oregon State and Washington State — when that league saw 10 bolt for other conferences.
UW’s football fortunes have fallen before, both on the field and in conference membership. The latter had its previous biggest shake-up in 1998 when the presidents of UW, Air Force, BYU, Colorado State and Utah met in Denver and agreed to leave the Western Athletic Conference and form the Mountain West Conference. All were WAC charter members in 1962.
There are many questions today about what Wyoming and the other Mountain West schools will do now. The conference could see some more of its ranks picked off by the PAC-12 or other major Football Bowl Subdivision conferences, or expand with smaller colleges who are in the lower Football Championship Subdivision. The most extreme options are to fold, or UW could drop to the FCS, where athletic budgets and TV revenues are much lower.
Nearly every time UW’s football team either gets off to a horrendous start or has budget problems, it triggers a debate in the Wyoming Legislature and throughout the state. It’s already started on a small scale.
On 7220sports.com — named for the elevation at Laramie’s War Memorial Stadium — fans reacted to the initial news. “Let’s be honest,” one posted, “Wyoming needs to join the FCS [Big Sky Conference] if we are ever to be competitive for a championship at this point … and this season to even be competitive for a win.”
“I’ll never understand why people believe UW would be competitive in the FCS,” another fan responded. “Leaving the MWC would leave us with less resources and less access to the athletes we currently recruit.”
Yes, UW’s football funding from several sources would definitely be cut, starting with state lawmakers already looking to reduce the university’s budget for any real or imaginary reason they can claim.
TV contracts would be significantly reduced in smaller media markets. UW donors who shell out a lot of money for stadium renovations and new training equipment won’t contribute as much if the quality of competition declines.
UW’s fan base has always supported the team, and many Cowboy fans travel to bowl games. In the FCS there are no bowl games, only a national playoff for the top 24 teams. That’s a lot less opportunity for postseason publicity and revenue.
UW fans’ biggest fear is that the “Border War” with Colorado State University, which began in 1899, could end. CSU has a 59-51-5 advantage in the West’s oldest rivalry, but UW has won the “Bronze Boot” traveling trophy 31 times compared to CSU’s 25. The Pokes won the last encounter, the 115th in the series, 24-15.
UW Athletic Director Tom Burman, in an interview with veteran sportswriter Ryan Thorburn of Wyoming Athletics, said he and CSU counterpart John Weber want the Border War to continue.
“College athletics has lost its balance, and we’re traveling sports teams all over the country to compete,” Burman said. “This is one that just makes sense. And I would say, ‘Let’s just not screw it up.’”
Amen to that. Burman also said UW is not interested in joining the FCS. “We have no desire to look at going down,” the athletic director said. “The state of Wyoming is not a place that goes down; we fight, we grind away to stay relevant. I think we will.”
The Mountain West Conference is set to receive a whopping $111 million in exit fees from the four defectors and a poaching fee paid by the Pac-12. That’s a lot of money for the Mountain West to right its ship.
But the conference could lose other teams to the PAC-12. I think the chance of UW being invited to join is nil, even with its strong fan base, especially if it keeps playing like it did last Saturday, a 44-17 shellacking by a North Texas team with one of the worst defenses in the country.
The Pac-12 raid was not completely unexpected, but the Mountain West Conference had a good reason to believe it wouldn’t happen after it provided the depleted conference a lifeline by scheduling games this season against both remaining Pac-12 teams. Talks reportedly focused on a merger, but it quickly became clear the “Pac-2” didn’t want one.
It’s easy to understand the motivations of Washington State and Oregon State, because everything in college sports is based on how much money can be made. They lured their new members with the likelihood of nearly doubling their broadcast revenues.
Wyoming Cowboys’ live mascot “Cowboy Joe” and handlers Alexa Rigsby (right) and McKinley Muhlbauer (left) before the September 2023 game against Texas Tech Red Raiders at War Memorial Stadium. (Troy Babbitt/UW Media-Athletics)
What happens next will largely depend on the moves of others, and the chain reaction that will follow in both the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision.
The Athletic noted the entire collegiate sports model could be overturned in the next few years, either through the courts or more conference realignments. The four universities that bolted “wanted to tie themselves to schools that invest more closely to their level, rather than those at the bottom of the Mountain West,” the Athletic wrote. “[They] felt this was their chance to end up on the right side of whatever the future is.”
As painful as that assessment sounds to UW fans, it appears to be true. If Wyoming was in the same position, I doubt it would pass up the chance to join the Pac-12. Washington State and Oregon State earned the least amount of revenue among its members in 2022-23, but both topped $83 million. Wyoming, seventh highest in the Mountain West, earned about $50 million.
Some predictions about the Mountain West’s future are rosy, while others see the conference boxed into a corner.
“The Mountain West is hardly dead in the water,” wrote Amanda Christovich of Front Office Sports. “In fact, it could become a destination in its own right to rival the Pac-12 for football dominance in the West.”
But USA Today’s Dan Wolken believes the heat is on Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez, who could see her conference drop to six if Air Force and UNLV leave.
“In a sane landscape, some people … would like to see the Mountain West remnants come to the negotiating table and perhaps merge with one of the other leagues,” Wolken wrote. “But given the egos and self-preservation instincts that drive many of these decisions,” he added, the conference will probably go after New Mexico State and Texas-El Paso.
If those don’t pan out, I believe we’ll dip into the FCS pool and fish out schools like North Dakota State, Montana, Montana State and Sacramento State. They could be competitive, but will never come close to matching the dear departed.
The more I look at what’s transpired, the more I feel like what UW fan Dave Collins posted on the 7220 forum is true: “Well … damn. Wyoming never left the FBS, but it sure looks like the FBS is leaving us.”
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