The Mountain West
Conference
By Matt Shetler
The Mountain West Conference (MWC)
is the youngest of all Division I college athletic conferences.
Founded in 199, the MWC consists of nine members in the Western,
United States that compete in seventeen men’s and women’s
Division I sports. The MWC headquarters are located in Colorado
Springs, Colorado and the conference commissioner is Craig
Thompson, a post he has held since the MWC was formed.
Charter members of the conference include: Air Force, BYU,
Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah and
Wyoming. Seven of these schools were former members of the
Western Athletic Conference, and four were charter members of
the WAC. In 1996, the WAC expanded from ten to sixteen teams and
all of the current members of the MWC complained that the
conference expanded to large. In 1999, the eight teams left the
conference to form what is currently the MWC. In 2005, the MWC
added a ninth member: TCU, also a former WAC member.
The MWC should not be confused with the former Mountain West
Athletic Conference, which existed from 1982-88. The Big Sky
Conference absorbed the former MWAC in 1989, taking all the
leagues records with them.
In its first decade of operation, the MWC has quickly become one
of the nation’s top “mid-major” conferences. In men’s
basketball, both BYU and UNLV have had success lately, both
ranked nationally. UNLV also advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2007.
On the gridiron, the MWC holds some of the oldest
inter-conference rivalries in existence. The Utah-BYU game
(dubbed The Holy War) has been played since 1896 and the
Colorado St.-Wyoming game (The Border War) has been played since
1899.
The 2007-08 campaign once again proved to be very successful to
MWC teams. The MWC sent a record five teams to bowl games,
posting a 4-1 record to capture the Bowl Challenge Cup (given to
the conference with the best bowl winning percentage) for the
second time in four years. MWC league champion BYU finished the
season ranked #14 in all polls.
The MWC is noted for several achievements in its first decade of
operation. The conference was the first to launch a sports
network devoted solely to its conference. The MWC was also the
first conference to institute the coaches challenge and instant
replay in its conference games.
Most notably, the MWC was the first non-BCS Conference to send a
representative to a BCS game. The Utah Utes defeated the Big
East Conference Pittsburgh Panthers in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. The
MWC was also the first to have a member institution with the
number one pick in both the NFL and NBA draft in the same year,
Utah’s Alex Smith and Andrew Bogut, respectively in 2005.
