Mountain West and Conference USA to merge

Mountain West Conference and Conference USA officials said today they have agreed to merge their football programs, which could put the University of Hawaii Warriors in a 22-team league stretching to the East Coast as early as 2012.

The Warriors, who are playing in their 33rd and final Western Athletic Conference season, are scheduled to join the MWC July 1, 2012. UH's other sports will be in the Big West.

But with the merger of the MWC and CUSA announced today, UH could find itself in a football-only league with teams including Orlando, Fla.-based Central Florida and Huntington, W.V.-based Marshall University.

Commissioners of the two conferences say they hope to begin play as one yet-to-be-named league possibly in 2012 but definitely by 2013. They said play would eventually be in regional-based divisions with a playoff structure.

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The University of Hawaii football team could find itself the most far-flung member of a 22-school, six-time zone, 4,735-mile-wide conference as early as the 2012 season under a merger of the Mountain West and Conference USA announced Friday.

The Warriors, who are in their 33rd and final Western Athletic Conference season, are scheduled to join the MWC July 1, 2012, as a football-only member. Most of UH's other teams will join the California-based Big West Conference.

But the MWC and C-USA signed a memorandum of understanding Friday that will result in one yet-to-be-named football conference for competitive and marketing purposes by 2013, but possibly in time for 2012, their commissioners announced.

C-USA currently has 12 teams spread from Mountain to Eastern time zones, including Orlando, Fla.-based Central Florida and Huntington, W.Va.-based Marshall University, and the MWC will have 10 members spread from Hawaii to the Rockies in 2012.

"It is a positive (for UH) in the sense of having a broad base of programs helps provide some stability, increased annual television revenue and postseason opportunities," UH athletic director Jim Donovan said. "So, I think it is very good development."

Donovan said that, at least initially, games against current C-USA members would be considered nonconference contests.

"The way it was explained to us, primarily the current Mountain West schools will play each other eight games and determine a champion and the current Conference USA schools will play each other and determine a champion and those two champions will come together and play a championship game, " Donovan said. "If we play any games against any teams that are currently in Conference USA they will be nonconference games."

[So to me it's not really a merged conference, but pretty much just an agreement to have a championship game between the two conferences.]