The History of the WAC

Of all the conferences torn apart by conference realignment that have seemingly been lost to time, the Western Athletic Conference, or WAC, tends to be listed near the front. This might be due to the fact that the conference is trying to reinvent itself as an FCS football league at the moment, or due to its infamous blunder in 1996 where it was made up of 16 colleges that stretched from Texas to Hawai'i and was so large it collapsed in on itself from its own weight, with the half that split from it in 1999, the Mountain West, eventually becoming the stronger and more viable conference.

But it's that 16-team makeup that is so drastically different in 2024 than it was in 1996, as 16 seems to be the baseline for the four Power Conferences, with the Big 12 and SEC both consisting of 16 teams and the Big Ten and ACC consisting of an even larger 18.

But the WAC's seeds are sewn in many different conferences in the modern day, to the point where it has echoes in the Big 12, ACC, American, and Conference USA, as well as the obvious Mountain West. Stories of Arizona State and Utah's athletic dominance in the 60s and 70s pair with the track and field dynasties of the UTEP Miners and the last non-power conference football national championship, belonging to BYU in 1984. And as its teams changed hands, it continued to adapt and evolve until it couldn't anymore---and even further after that.

Come with me as I take a quick walk back through the history of the Western Athletic Conference.

0:00 - Introduction
1:25 - The Skyline Conference
3:44 - The Western Athletic Conference
9:27 - The Collapse
13:38 - The Rebirth (Non-Football)
15:08 - Pushing for FCS Football
17:15 - WAC Championships
17:50 - Conclusion

No content used in this video belongs to me and is only utilized legally through fair use for the purpose of education. Video is sourced from BYU.tv and ABC and was obtained on YouTube. Images are sourced whenever possible to their respective rights owners. All music was sourced through YouTube's free audio library. Timeline of events and official placements of said events were sourced through the WAC's official history pages on their website, listed below:

https://wacsports.com/sports/2023/4/2...