CUSA Board to Discuss Merger With Mountain West This Week

Having lost four schools to the Big East, Conference USA officials will meet this week to discuss a full merger with the Mountain West Conference.

Memphis will announce today they are accepting an invitation to the Big East Conference, joining Houston, SMU and Central Florida as teams defecting for the Big East.  Memphis would join in 2013, while the other schools would make the move in 2013-14.

As it stands right now, both CUSA and the Mountain West would each have eight football playing members after the defections.  The Mountain West is adding Fresno State and Nevada for all sports, and Hawai'i for football only, but is losing San Diego State and Boise State, along with TCU.

A merger would make CUSA/MWC a sixteen team league for football and fifteen for other sports.

If the two schools do not merge, expect both to look to expand further.  That would put the Western Athletic Conference in serious jeopardy as an FBS conference, and could affect the Sun Belt as well.