Conference USA, Mountain West Merger Now A Reality

Members of the Mountain West and Conference USA, including UTEP, announced Monday that they’re forming a new super conference, which may eventually include up to 24 schools and stretch across the country.

UTEP President Dr. Diana Natalicio said presidents and athletic directors from the two conferences met Sunday in Dallas to firm up the agreement, which will become official when the board of regents from each school meets over the next couple of weeks and votes to approve, as expected.

The new league will consist of East Carolina, Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane, Tulsa, Alabama-Birmingham and UTEP from Conference USA, and Air Force, Colorado State, Fresno State, Nevada, New Mexico, UNLV, Wyoming and Hawaii as a football only school.

Play begins in the new conference is set to begin during the 2013-14 athletic year. Other schools being mentioned as possible additions for the league include Temple and North Texas.

Joining this yet to be named conference, which will be the biggest in the country, is like coming full circle for UTEP. Back in 1996, the WAC, of which UTEP was a member, formed a 16-school conference that lasted only three years before eight member schools — including many of UTEP’s biggest rivals like New Mexico — left suddenly to form the Mountain West.

UTEP, which had been in the WAC since 1967, left the depleted league for Conference USA in 2005, where it has competed since.

Natalicio said today the most popular reasons to form a new league are television revenue and stability.

“What we would like to be able to do in the best of all worlds would be to achieve some greater stability going forward and television is very much a part of that,” Natalicio said. “Contractual arrangements could be a part of that. So we’ll see where that takes us.”

ABC-7 asked about the possibility of adding neighboring New Mexico State to the new conference. Natalicio said the Aggies are not on the current list of possibilities, but UTEP Athletic Director Bob Stull said they are.

ABC-7 also asked whether it will be more or less expensive to travel in this new league. The consensus was with East and West divisions expected to be formed, it could very well be less expensive.