Time for Bulldogs to make a move

The Sports Corner By Eddie Hughes

The WAC is being whacked apart again.

Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulsa are all leaving the Western Athletic Conference for Conference-USA, the Houston Chronicle reported last week. The universities will make their moves for the 2005-06 academic year.

That’s a direct blow to Fresno State.

It’s not that those three teams are conference powers, but the fact that the WAC will have to look to even worse teams as replacements.

Rice football—nice option game, but lots of losses annually. SMU football—0-6 this season. Tulsa football—more losses in a year than Fresno State usually has in two or three.

Who will replace the departees? New Mexico State? Blah. Utah State? Even worse. North Texas? Decent in football.

The WAC sans Rice, SMU and Tulsa isn’t much better than the Big West in San Jose State’s glory days.

At least Rice is known for great academics. Tulsa has basketball. And SMU has the large Dallas television market.

If the Bulldogs return to a hybrid Big West they might never rise to the upper echelon of college football.

Sure, the Bulldogs would leave too if invited to the Mountain West Conference or the Pac-10. Problem is, that hasn’t happened yet.

The Bulldogs are on the right track by no longer accepting non-qualifiers in athletics, finally making moves to improve football facilities and erecting the state-of-the-art Save Mart Center—but is it enough?

A report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram said the MWC favors Texas Christian if it decides to expand to nine teams. If the MWC does expand, the universities rumored to be courted are TCU from C-USA and Fresno State, Hawaii, Boise State and Nevada from the WAC.

The Bulldogs have to get one of those bids. It might not be enjoyable, considering that all eight of the current MWC teams bolted the then 16-team WAC in 1998. But the Bulldogs need to gulp, take a collective deep breath and ask for inclusion among those who once left them behind.

Because if Fresno State ever wants to be included as one of the big boys and participate in a Bowl Championship Series conference, a move has to be made. Time is running slim.

The Big East has been raided of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College by the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now the WAC is being raided—possibly from two different directions.

Fresno State needs to make sure other schools don’t have reasons to exclude it. The Bulldogs are favorable on the field to most, if not all, MWC teams. The same can be said facility-wise. Moves are being made to improve academics, and football coach Pat Hill has shown that he cares about his players’ classroom performance.

Now more than ever, Fresno State officials need to take a proactive stance. The WAC probably won’t be around much longer—at least not as a Division-IA conference. But Fresno State should be. The Bulldogs need to get in a good conference to survive.

All Fresno State has to do is make sure its in with the in crowd when the shakeup goes down.