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As it turns out, the Mountain West Conference will stay intact.
San Diego State announced Wednesday it will remain a MWC member.
SDSU was due to join the Big East Conference in football and the Big West Conference in its other sports in 2014. The move follows one Boise State made weeks earlier: The Broncos also made arrangements to join the Big East in football and Big West in other sports before reversing course.
“We are optimistic about the future of San Diego State University’s athletic programs and the prospect of building on our university’s rich tradition of intercollegiate athletics,” San Diego State President Elliot Hirshman and athletic director Jim Sterk stated in a joint release.
The Mountain West has 10 football teams: San Diego State, Boise State, Air Force Academy, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, UNLV and Wyoming — and nine teams in other sports. Hawaii is the lone football-only member and competes in the Big West Conference in other sports.
According to the SDSU statement, the school will receive its revenue from the Mountain West for the 2012-13 season. Part of the revenue will be devoted to exit fees SDSU must pay to the Big West Conference. The statement from the SDSU officials did not specify the cost of those exit fees.
The school does not have to pay exit fees to the Big East, according to the release. In an agreement between SDSU and the Big East, no exit fees are required when SDSU leaves if there was not another program west of the Rocky Mountains in the conference.
Boise State would have been the only other Big East team in the region.
“We have the deepest respect for our colleagues in the Mountain West, Big East and Big West conferences with whom we have worked collaboratively during the period of conference realignment,” Hirshman and Sterk stated in the release.
Two new members, San Jose State and Utah State, are set join the MWC fall 2013. Both schools play in the Western Athletic Conference, where New Mexico State competes.
The addition makes a league with 12 football institutions. As a result, it is expected the league will be divided into two divisions in football with each division winner contending in a conference championship game. The Pacific 12 Conference and the Big Ten Conference created football championship games between division winners when they became 12-team conferences.
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“SDSU’s membership continues uninterrupted and helps the Mountain West maintain a solid foundation going forward,” Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson said. “The Aztecs remain a perfect fit geographically and provide the conference with a highly competitive athletics program that includes a top-25 men’s basketball team, a 2012 MW tri-champion in football and several other league championship programs.”
