Mountain West Conference (MWC)
Established: 1999
NCAA	Division I FBS
Members	9
Sports fielded	17 (men's: 8; women's: 9)
Region	Western United States
Headquarters	Colorado Springs, Colorado
Commissioner	Craig Thompson (since 1999)
Website	http://themwc.com/
Locations

The Mountain West Conference (or MWC), the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA’s Division I FBS (I-A), officially began operations in July 1999. Geographically, the MWC covers a broad expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. Craig Thompson has served as Commissioner of the MWC since its founding in 1999.

Charter members included Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming. Before forming the Mountain West Conference, seven of the eight charter members had been longtime members of the Western Athletic Conference; half were WAC charter members at its formation in 1962 - UNLV had only joined the WAC in 1996.

The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996, absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference (Rice, SMU, and TCU), adding two from the Big West (San Jose State and UNLV), and Tulsa from the Missouri Valley. After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided the that the new WAC was oversized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference. The MWC added a ninth team in 2005: TCU, also a former WAC member, which joined after four seasons in Conference USA.

A lesser known "Mountain West Athletic Conference" existed from 1982-88, sponsoring championships for women’s sports at Big Sky Conference institutions. The Big Sky absorbed the MWAC in 1988, forming one league for both men's and women's competition.

[edit] Members

Locations of current Mountain West Conference full member institutions.

[edit] A Hypothetical Expansion

The Boise, Idaho, radio station KBOI reported on Nov. 11, 2008, that the Western Athletic Conference member Boise State's president Robert Kustra had received a letter from the Mountain West Conference with an invitation to join this league. Despite the popularity of potential expansion among some fans and reporters, this report, also reported on the Boise newspaper's Web site www.IdahoStatesman.com , has been denied.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Sports

The MWC sponsors championships in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's golf, women's soccer, swimming and diving, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball, football, softball,indoor and outdoor track and cross country. Many of its member schools participate in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for sports not sponsored by the Mountain West Conference. Two MWC schools have unique affiliations in men's soccer as San Diego State competes as a member of the Pacific-10 Conference, while BYU has completely abandoned the collegiate competitive structure in that sport, opting instead to field a semi-professional team in the USL Premier Development League.

Starting with the 2009-10 season, the Mountain West and Missouri Valley Conferences will hold an annual challenge series between all nine members of the MWC and nine of the ten MVC teams. The first game will be on November 13 between the Bradley Braves and the BYU Cougars in Provo and concluding on December 23 with the Wyoming Cowboys visiting the Northern Iowa Panthers in Cedar Falls, IA. The challenge is similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, which pits men's basketball teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference.^[1]

[edit] Television network

See article MountainWest Sports Network

[edit] Conference Champions

[edit] Men's Championship Winners

Source:^[2]

[edit] Women's Championship Winners

Source:^[2]

[edit] Football Rivalries

[edit] Conference

Since TCU joined the conference in 2005, BYU and TCU have begun to develop a heated rivalry. For at least the 2008 and 2009 football seasons, the TCU team placed a BYU helmet atop its tackling dummy. ^[3]

[edit] Bowl games

The Mountain West Conference will have agreements with the following bowls for 2010-13: The MWC champion will receive an automatic berth in one of the five BCS bowl games if:

• ranked in the top 12 of the BCS Standings. (Utah qualified under this criterion in 2008)
• Or if ranked in the top 16 of the BCS Standings and its ranking is higher than that of a champion of a conference that has an annual automatic berth in one of the BCS bowls.

• Maaco Bowl Las Vegas: Las Vegas, Nevada (MWC #1 pick against Pac-10 #5 pick)
• Poinsettia Bowl: San Diego, California (MWC #2 pick against Pac-10 #6 pick)
• Independence Bowl: Shreveport, Louisiana (MWC #3 pick against ACC #7 pick)
• Armed Forces Bowl: Fort Worth, Texas (MWC #4/5 pick against C-USA pick)
• New Mexico Bowl: Albuquerque, New Mexico (MWC #4/5 pick against WAC #1/2/3 pick)

[1]

[edit] Non-Conference

[edit] Postseason Records

[edit] Conference Facilities

[edit] Elevation

The Mountain West's slogan is "Above the rest," and most member institutions are at more than 4,000 feet above sea level. This impacts endurance in sports like football, soccer, and the distance races in track & field and swimming meets, and aerodynamics in baseball, softball, golf, and the discus and javelin throws. The Mountain West's institutions have the highest average elevation in NCAA Division I sports.

[edit] See also

• Mountain West Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
• Mountain West Conference Women's Basketball Tournament
• Mountain West Conference Baseball Tournament

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Athletic Site of the Mountain West Conference
• Largest MWC Fan Forum
• The Big Podcast: A Quality Mountain West Conference Blog