Mountain West Conference

The Mountain West Conference (formally abbreviated MW since July 2011; informally MWC), popularly known as the Mountain West, is the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA’s Division I FBS (formerly I-A). The MWC officially began operations in July 1999. Geographically, the MW covers a broad expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming, and has announced expansion into Hawaii, and back into Utah in 2012. The conference introduced a new logo for the 2011 season to reflect on the changes. Craig Thompson has served as Commissioner of the MW since its founding in 1999.

Charter members included Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming. Before forming the Mountain West Conference, seven of the eight charter members had been longtime members of the Western Athletic Conference; half were WAC charter members at its formation in 1962 - UNLV had only joined the WAC in 1996.

History
The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996, absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference (SWC) (Rice, SMU, and TCU), adding two from the Big West (San Jose State and UNLV), and Tulsa from the Missouri Valley. After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided that the new WAC was oversized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference. The MWC added a ninth team in 2005: TCU, also a former WAC and SWC member, which joined after four seasons in Conference USA.

On June 11, 2010, Boise State University agreed to join the conference as its tenth member. On June 17, 2010, Utah announced it would be leaving the Mountain West to join what would become the Pacific-12 Conference. On August 18, 2010, amidst rumors that Brigham Young was considering leaving the Mountain West to go independent in football and rejoin the Western Athletic Conference in all other sports, the Mountain West Conference officially extended invitations to California State University, Fresno and the University of Nevada, Reno. Fresno State and Nevada accepted and would become the tenth and eleventh members of the league. BYU announced on August 31, 2010 that it would leave the Mountain West Conference and go Independent in football and become a member of the West Coast Conference (WCC) in other sports starting in 2011. On November 29, 2010, Texas Christian University announced all athletic teams would move to the Big East Conference effective in 2012. (Less than a year later, on October 10, 2011, TCU announced it would not join the Big East but would join the Big 12 in 2012 instead.) On December 10, 2010, the University of Hawaii at Mānoa accepted a bid to become the 10th member of the conference for football only. These changes would leave the Mountain West Conference with 10 teams for the 2012 football season.

The MWC champion has qualified for a BCS bowl four times since the BCS formula was tweaked to allow non-BCS conferences to play in BCS bowls if ranked in the top 12; however, all 4 teams that qualified are no longer with the conference.

On October 14, 2011 the Mountain West & Conference USA announced a plan for a football only alliance.

On February 13, 2012, the Mountain West & Conference USA (C-USA) announced that both conferences would be dissolving after the 2012-2013 season to reform into one conference with at least 15 members for all sports, and a 16th team, University of Hawaii at Mānoa as a football-only member. However, when the two conferences discussed their plans with the NCAA, they were told that due to NCAA rules, they would forfeit substantial revenues. Specifically, the new conference would receive only one automatic bid to NCAA championships; at least one of the former conferences would lose future revenue distributions from the NCAA men's basketball tournament; and at least one former conference would not be able to collect exit fees from any members that departed to join the new conference. As a result, the Mountain West and C-USA apparently backed away from a full merger. In late March of that year, the commissioners of both conferences stated that all 16 schools had entered into binding agreements to form a new "association", although the Mountain West and C-USA will now apparently remain separate legal entities. As many as eight more schools could be added to the alliance by the time membership is finalized in June 2012.

On May 2, San Jose State and Utah State agreed to join the conference for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Current members
TCU will leave the conference in 2012 to become a member of the Big 12 Conference. Boise State will leave the conference in 2013 to become a member of the Big East Conference in football and the Western Athletic Conference in other sports. San Diego State will leave the conference in 2013 to become a member of the Big East Conference in football and the Big West Conference in other sports.

Membership timeline
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Sports
The MW sponsors championships in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, football, men's and women's golf, women's soccer, softball, women's swimming and diving, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's indoor and outdoor track, and women's volleyball. Many of its member schools participate in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for sports not sponsored by the Mountain West Conference. Two MW members have affiliate memberships with the Pacific-12 Conference - San Diego State for men's soccer and Boise State for wrestling.

Since the 2009-10 season, the Mountain West and Missouri Valley Conferences have held an annual challenge series between all members of the MWC and an equal number of the 10 MVC teams in basketball. The first game was on November 13, featuring the Bradley Braves and the BYU Cougars in Provo and it concluded on December 23 with the Wyoming Cowboys visiting the Northern Iowa Panthers in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The challenge is similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, which pits men's basketball teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference.

Television network

 * ''See article MountainWest Sports Network

Men's championship winners
Source:

Postseason records
{| class="wikitable" Appearance'''
 * - bgcolor=# align=center
 * colspan=6 | Women's NCAA Basketball Tournament
 * - bgcolor=# align=center
 * School
 * Appearances
 * W
 * L
 * '''Wins Per
 * National Championships
 * - bgcolor=#ffe3e3
 * San Diego State
 * align=center | 7
 * align= right | 4
 * align= right | 7
 * align=center | .364
 * align=center | 0
 * New Mexico
 * align=center | 8
 * align= right | 3
 * align= right | 8
 * align=center | .375
 * align=center | 0
 * Colorado State
 * align=center | 5
 * align= right | 5
 * align= right | 5
 * align=center | .500
 * align=center | 0
 * - bgcolor=#ffe3e3
 * TCU
 * align=center | 8
 * align= right | 5
 * align= right | 8
 * align=center | .385
 * align=center | 0
 * -bgcolor=#ffe3e3
 * Boise State
 * align=center | 2
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 2
 * align=center |.000
 * align=center | 0
 * -bgcolor="#e3e3e3"
 * Fresno State
 * align=center | 4
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 4
 * align=center |.000
 * align=center | 0
 * UNLV
 * align= center | 8
 * align= right | 3
 * align= right | 8
 * align=center | .273
 * align=center | 0
 * Wyoming
 * align= center | 1
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 1
 * align=center | .000
 * align=center | 0
 * Air Force
 * align=center | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align=center |.000
 * align=center | 0
 * -bgcolor="#e3e3e3"
 * Nevada
 * align=center | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align=center |.000
 * align=center | 0
 * align=center | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align= right | 0
 * align=center |.000
 * align=center | 0

Future members in gray. Departing members in pink.

Bowl games
The Mountain West Conference will have agreements with the following bowls for 2010-13:
 * The MWC champion will receive an automatic berth in one of the five BCS bowl games if they are the highest ranked non-automatic qualifying conference champion and either of the following:
 * Ranked in the top 12 of the BCS Rankings. (Utah qualified under this criterion in 2004-05 and 2007–08, and TCU in 2008-09 and 2010–11.)
 * Ranked in the top 16 of the BCS Rankings and its ranking is higher than that of an automatic qualifying conference champion.

If Hawai‘i is bowl eligible and not MWC champions or selected for a BCS bowl, they will receive a berth in the Hawai‘i Bowl.

Bowl Challenge Cup
ESPN created the Bowl Challenge Cup in 2002 for the conference that had the best college football bowl record among Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conferences. The conference has won it four times, more than any other. They finished 4-1 in bowl games in 2011, the best record out of all conferences.

Conference facilities
Future members in grey. Members leaving in pink.

Elevation
The Mountain West's slogan is "Above the rest," and over half of the member institutions are at more than 4000 ft above sea level (although the average elevation will drop to 3,822 feet in 2011-12 and 3,473 feet in 2012-13). This impacts endurance in sports like football, soccer, and the distance races in track & field and swimming meets, and aerodynamics in baseball, softball, golf, and the discus and javelin throws. The Mountain West's institutions have one of the highest average elevations in NCAA Division I sports.