Mountain West Conference extends invitations to Fresno State and Nevada

Aug. 18, 2010 4:32 PM PT

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College conference cat-and-mouse games, which dominated the off-season news, continue into the dog days of August.

Amid rumors Brigham Young is considering leaving the Mountain West and going independent in football, with all other sports moving to the Western Athletic Conference, the Mountain West responded on Wednesday by offering invitations to WAC schools Fresno State and Nevada.

The Mountain West made the announcement in a two-sentence press release and said Commissioner Craig Thompson was traveling and unavailable for comment

Both conferences currently have nine football-playing members. Utah, though, is leaving the Mountain West after this year to join the Pac-10 while Boise State is leaving the WAC to join the Mountain West.

The WAC was planning on playing with eight football members for now, but losing Fresno State and Nevada would cripple the conference without a few counter moves.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. Stay tuned.

-- Chris Dufresne

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Chris Dufresne

Chris Dufresne was the Los Angeles Times’ national college football/basketball columnist from 1995 to 2015. He also covered skiing at the Winter Olympics and wrote extensively on most sports. He is a multiple national award winner and was named 2011 California Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Assn. A Los Angeles native, he started at The Times in 1976 as a truck loader and literally worked his way up (two floors to be exact).