BREAKING NEWS: HAWAI’I GETS MOUNTAIN WEST INVITE

The Honolulu Star Advertiser is reporting that Hawai'i has received an invitation to join the Mountain West Conference for football only.  The school has called a press conference for 7pm HST to make an announcement.

In a possibly related development, the Big West Conference has lifted their moratorium on expansion, which could pave the way for the league to add the other Rainbow Warriors/Rainbow Wahine sports.

If Hawai'i accepts the invite, the Western Athletic Conference would be down to eight menbers on July 1, 2012.  Denver is a non football school.  The NCAA says in order to be a viable FBS (Division 1-A) Conference, the league must have eight full time football playing schools.  This means the WAC would have to add at least one more football playing school in order to survive.

The WAC recently announced that Texas State and Texas-San Antonio would join the league, along with Denver, on July 1, 2012.  The University of Montana announced last week that they would remain in the FCS.  The WAC had been courting the school for membership.

Three Sun Belt Schools, Arkansas State, North Texas and Louisiana recently expressed no interest in becoming part of the WAC, leaving the conference to invite the Texas schools, both members of the Southland Conference.  Texas San Antonio is starting their football program next year.