BYU to join West Coast Conference

Rumors have been swirling for some time now that BYU was looking to make a big move with their athletic program and the fall out is apparenlty upon us as the Cougars will be joining the West Coast Conference.

The move will take place next year and the West Coast Conference has scheduled a press conferenece on Wednesday at 11 AM pacific to announce the move.

The Cougars move is driven by their desire to be independent in football and dictate their own schedule (and maximize $$$). Once they began to explore this option, it was clear that the Mountain West was not about to let them move out their football program but keep everything else in the conference so the Cougars had to find a new home. Initially, the most sensible move was to the WAC but after the Mountain West swept up Fresno and Nevada-Reno, that option began to lose appeal.

The WCC came into play once this happened but that is when news began to die down and everyone just assumed BYU would remain in the Mountain West and swallow their hopes of independence for the time being. The West Coast Conference has been very receptive to BYU all along and now it appears a deal has been struck and the Cougars will be the ninth member of the conference.

We are very, very excited about this move and will have much more on it later. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and welcome to our new BYU friends!