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Football
In December 2010, Hawaii finally received a bid to become a football-only member of the Mountain West Conference and later received conference membership for all other sports in the Big West Conference. This gave Hawaii the ability to follow fellow Western Athletic Conference (WAC) members out the door to the Mountain West (Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada). While the WAC was teetering on life support, the Mountain West was a major shot in the arm to the program while reuniting the Warriors with traditional foes like Wyoming, San Diego State and Air Force. While BYU, Utah and TCU were gone, the remaining schools were unlikely to go anywhere.
But superconferences threaten to upset this new found stability. By leaving the Big XII for a potential SEC invitation, Texas A&M once again set a potential domino effect in motion. Worst case scenario, Oklahoma and other schools could leave the Big XII and the remaining schools like Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State could keep the Big XII shell intact while selectively choosing a portion of the Mountain West schools to come onboard. While schools like Boise State and Colorado State might be targeted in this scenario, Hawaii most certainly would not be. With the PAC-12 unlikely to go after any Mountain West schools, another scenario would actually strengthen the Mountain West. If most of the Big XII schools found homes in the SEC and the PAC-12 and the Big XII crumbled, it is possible the Mountain West could actually be strengthened by being able to add 2-3 Big XII castoffs such as Iowa State or Kansas State. Combining these additions with some combination of additions from Conference USA (Houston, SMU, UTEP) and the WAC (Utah State, UTSA), the Mountain West might actually end up in a better position as a Superconference "Light". While they would lack the firepower of the PAC-12 or SEC, they would have enough political clout and programs with 50 plus years of Division 1-A experience to ensure that they had some type of seat at the table if the four 16 team superconferences left them out.
On the outside chance that the Mountain West would be poached so severely by the Big XII survivors or the PAC-12 that it would crumble, Hawaii may be reluctant to re-join the WAC, even though some programs such as Wyoming would almost certainly be forced to do that. A more likely scenario would see them remaining in the Big West for all other sports and pursuing football independence. Hawaii would need to use its time zone to an advantage by signing some type of deal with ESPN or Fox to be the last game every Saturday. There are college football junkies that want to keep watching football even if it is 10:30 on the east coast. A mid-season game of Alabama at Hawaii or even UNLV at Hawaii would certainly appeal to them.
Copyright Donald Plunkett. Seen the new Hawaii football helmet? Visit http://www.footballhelmets.com
By Donald Plunkett
But superconferences threaten to upset this new found stability. By leaving the Big XII for a potential SEC invitation, Texas A&M once again set a potential domino effect in motion. Worst case scenario, Oklahoma and other schools could leave the Big XII and the remaining schools like Kansas State, Baylor and Iowa State could keep the Big XII shell intact while selectively choosing a portion of the Mountain West schools to come onboard. While schools like Boise State and Colorado State might be targeted in this scenario, Hawaii most certainly would not be. With the PAC-12 unlikely to go after any Mountain West schools, another scenario would actually strengthen the Mountain West. If most of the Big XII schools found homes in the SEC and the PAC-12 and the Big XII crumbled, it is possible the Mountain West could actually be strengthened by being able to add 2-3 Big XII castoffs such as Iowa State or Kansas State. Combining these additions with some combination of additions from Conference USA (Houston, SMU, UTEP) and the WAC (Utah State, UTSA), the Mountain West might actually end up in a better position as a Superconference "Light". While they would lack the firepower of the PAC-12 or SEC, they would have enough political clout and programs with 50 plus years of Division 1-A experience to ensure that they had some type of seat at the table if the four 16 team superconferences left them out.
On the outside chance that the Mountain West would be poached so severely by the Big XII survivors or the PAC-12 that it would crumble, Hawaii may be reluctant to re-join the WAC, even though some programs such as Wyoming would almost certainly be forced to do that. A more likely scenario would see them remaining in the Big West for all other sports and pursuing football independence. Hawaii would need to use its time zone to an advantage by signing some type of deal with ESPN or Fox to be the last game every Saturday. There are college football junkies that want to keep watching football even if it is 10:30 on the east coast. A mid-season game of Alabama at Hawaii or even UNLV at Hawaii would certainly appeal to them.
Copyright Donald Plunkett. Seen the new Hawaii football helmet? Visit http://www.footballhelmets.com
By Donald Plunkett
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