UTEP to join 16 team MWC (speculation)
- Thread starter KaneFan29
- Start date
If Senter could some how get us to the MWC I would be very happy and immediately renew my season tickets to MBB. Our program would take a jump IMO.
Here's hoping your extra $500 a year tips the kettle in favor of the MWC. #senterstage #moremoola
Here’s a question for the board. Would we accept an invitation if it involved all of our teams except for football? What if the plan is to pick up Gonzaga, NMSU, UTEP, BYU, and Grand Canyon basketball teams only. It easily becomes a 3-4 bid league each year but our football team would have to go independent like NMSU’s.
No. Might as well drop football. Also for those that will surely ask, you cannot put your olympic sports in another conference and play football in another. Meaning, we couldn't play in MAC, Sun Belt, or CUSA for football only.
The MWC would be great for UTEP athletics but it won't happen unless football takes a big step up in the win column.
Haha I left out our copy cats on purpose. It’s time they leave the nest and form their own identity.
I enjoyed reading Jeremy’s writing from his days editing the mountain west connection on SB nation. He’s got a new gig now with this website.
https://mwwire.com/2018/03/19/a-16-team-mountain-west-maybe/
https://mwwire.com/2018/03/19/a-16-team-mountain-west-maybe/
I'm aware. The more I look it, the more it looks like a dream. And not the American Dream Dusty Rhodes.
Wanting to stay in CUSA because of the Texas schools is one of the dumbest reasons I have ever heard. Keep this mentality up and years from now will be in CUSA with Texas schools alright. Not with RICE, UTSA, and UNT but with Sam Houston St, Incarnate Word and Texas St. We all know that if any CUSA school received an invitation to the MW or AAC they would bolt in a second. They are not going decline an invitation and jeopardize their future to be in the same conference as UTEP.
Someone out there has the proof that UTEP was invited by the MWC at least once, but some on here say it was actually twice and Diana said "no" both times due to exit fee. Is this correct?
The local sports media, including Kap, keep saying basically that this has not happened at all. UTEP is not going anywhere for a long time and this is just discussion and nothing more but the facts of this need to be clearly described because it confuses Miner fans. I'm not calling the local media "fake news" but they don't give the total scope. However, the El Paso sports media has shown "slight of hand" tilt towards UTEP joining their old WAC brethren over the years. "Yes, no, maybe so" just confuses people.
Stull completely misread his relationship with Houston and SMU. He thought we were a three way alliance. Those two schools didn't like us. Houston in particular didn't like being a conference with us. We were the first state school they had had for a conference mate since the SWC. When Houston and SMU left for the AAC they were shocked. It came out of left field to them. It was particularly painful because they had turned down the MWC twice. Natalicio put out a statement that UTEP didn't want in the the AAC. It was just damage control and spin. To top it off when the AAC needed a final member Houston and SMU nixed any discussion of UTEP and Tulsa was invited. The whole thing was predictable but the administration was asleep at the wheel. They had convinced themselves they had formed a Texas alliance with SMU and UH. They had convinced themselves we needed an Eastern presence and to play games in Texas. Natalicio is always in shock that people question UTEP's academics. The reason we are in cusa 2.0 is because Stull completely misread his relationship with SMU and UH. This has really hurt UTEP's relationship with some big boosters that lingers today. If Senter wants to fix UTEP athletics he's going to have to leave So Paso and fix the relationships with the alumni and big boosters outside El Paso. It will be outside money that fixes UTEP athletics. So far Senter is off to a rocky start trying to fix the relationships with some big boosters.
The Texas schools wanted nothing to do with us. Shocker! Everyone is always looking out for themselves. The UTEP administration should have learned their lesson the first time we got left behind in a conference.
Anyways we weren’t the first Texas university to share a conference with UH. TCU and UH were members of CUSA for a while.
Definitely agree that Senter needs to work on rebuilding relationships with the influential out of town boosters, and that is critical for the long term success of the program. I had actually heard some positive things, but that is a small sample. I would be interested to get a few more details, if this is possible.