A peek at WAC history shows a constellation of stars like UTEP’s Tim Hardaway, Utah’s Keith Van Horn and the immortal Fennis Dembo of Wyoming. In the early part of the last decade, it was regularly one of the sport’s top-15 leagues. New Mexico State has reached the NCAA tournament via the WAC nine times since 2007, and the WAC has been a two-bid league as recently as 2010. Immediate basketball respect will come quicker, as there’s strong history there all the way back to Utah’s two Final Fours as a WAC member (19). We understand that realistically this is going to be at least a five-year process.” James Hurley, the president of Tarleton State. “Our goal going into this is to immediately start laying out a plan among the presidents and athletic directors to develop a strategic plan to become an FBS conference,” said Dr. They are hoping to tap into the frontier spirit that made WAC football a venerable part of the college football landscape for 51 years. The goal is for the schools to grow up together, merging their enrollments and ambitions, to once again end up with a league that’s a staple on bar room televisions, engaging weeknight contests and elite players. For years, the WAC provided a beacon for late-night football on television.Ĭan this new version of the league help ignite schools, brands and emerge as an incubator for similar indelible stars and moments? There are also BYU’s Steve Young, BYU’s Jim McMahon and Fresno State’s Trent Dilfer. Stars have included Ty Detmer, who won the Heisman Trophy playing in the WAC, along with TCU’s LaDainian Tomlinson, Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick and San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk. Over the years, WAC schools have also included SMU, TCU and Boise State. It housed BYU during that school’s lone football national title in 1984. WAC football should be fondly remembered by college sports fans. Is there growth potential on the football fringes? We’re about to find out. That includes a hope that in the next decade - perhaps as soon as five years - the league can leap into FBS football. The combination of the WAC’s strong brand, ambitious leadership and betting on fertile markets make the recalibrated conference one of the most intriguing subplots in college athletics in the upcoming years. The same expansion will potentially jolt the WAC into the conversation for multiple at-large teams in the NCAA basketball tournament every year. Last week, the Western Athletic Conference announced it plans to start FCS football in the fall of 2021, bringing back a sport it abandoned in 2012 after 51 years. A grand sporting experiment is upon us, channeling back our memories to days of last-call craziness, Final Fours and even a football national title.
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