WAC loses 2 more members

UPDATED

Fresno State and Nevada are joining Boise State in a move from the WAC to the Mountain West, leaving Idaho and the five other remaining WAC members — at this point — to pick up the pieces. The exodus of two of the league’s upper-echelon programs could lead to the eventual disintegration of the WAC, or a slew of invitations from WAC commissioner Karl Benson to lower-tier Western schools. It’s been reported that BYU will join the WAC in all sports other than football, where it will move to independent status. But that’s still up in the air.

Idaho athletic Rob Spear told the S-R this evening that he won’t comment at this time. Meanwhile, football coach Robb Akey told the Idaho Statesman: “Selfishly, I just want to see the WAC come out of it in the strongest fashion. That’s what I’m pulling for.”

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Verlin was blissfully ignorant for the most part before I called. When told FSU and UNR were leaving, he said, “Wow, I didn’t even know that was going on. … Somebody texted me and said they were going to do that, but I didn’t know that.”

The coach added: “I don’t know about from a football standpoint because I don’t anything about football as far as all the BCS stuff, but I think the more quality teams we can have or keep, the better chance we have getting NCAA tournament bids.

“If we were fortunate enough to get BYU, that would bring a really quality team to the conference.”

Verlin said he had no inside knowledge, but to him it makes sense for Utah State to join the MWC as well — if BYU stays. Then, with a laugh, he said, “Boy, there are administrators scrambling tonight, isn’t there?”