Here's what I'm hearing about the disintegration of the WAC

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Today is a big realignment day. There’s a press conference in Dekalb this afternoon to discuss NIU’s move to the Horizon, which I plan to attend. But there are other realignment conversations happening elsewhere across the country…conversations that will soon lead to other press conferences.

On February 6, I reported:,

Earlier this week, Brett McMurphy of the Action Report tweeted

I can confirm this report. Multiple sources with direct familiarity with the proceedings have told me that Big West presidents will gather together to vote on those two expansion candidates, as well as to discuss matters unrelated to expansion or conference realignment. Those sources have all repeatedly stressed to me that the meeting is to discuss and vote on those candidates, and that no invitations have currently been sent out.

That distinction is important, because while industry sources in the Big West and WAC circles have been uniform in telling me there’s a lot of confidence that Utah Valley will be enthusiastically supported by all Big West institutions, the decision about Cal Baptist is much closer.

Why are some Big West institutions more excited about Utah Valley than Cal Baptist? Why did the conference target those two institutions in particular? And what does this mean for the remaining WAC Institutions, like Utah Tech and UT-Arlington?

After hitting the phones these last two weeks, this is what I’ve been hearing.

Why Utah Valley and Cal Baptist?

On the surface, both of these schools may seem like surprising fits. Now that Hawaii is departing for the Mountain West, every single current Big West institution is a public school in California. Utah Valley is public, but very much not in California. Cal Baptist is in California, but private.

Folks close to the Big West’s thinking have told me that while the current institutional makeup is something the Big West’s presidents have sought to maintain for several years, it wasn’t always like that. Pacific (private), Idaho, Utah State and Boise State were all previous members of the conference in the 2000s. As one source told me, “We’re the Big West, not the Big California.”

Earlier this fall, I’m told league presidents began to become more open to considering other types of institutions. A few Big West schools kicked the tires on potentially joining the WCC, and later, UC-Davis and Hawaii announced a move to the Mountain West. The Big West felt as though they needed to shore up membership in order to remain stable and secure, and well, there just aren’t that many other California public institutions ready to make that jump.

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