Conference Expansion Renews: UT Arlington Accepts WAC Invitation, Will Join Division I-A In 2012

What if Karl Benson threw a party and nobody came? Floating in the detritus of the Friday afternoon bad news dump, that time after 3:30 p.m. reserved for the most unsavory of PR releases, came the news that UT Arlington will accept an invitation to mount up with the WAC for the 2012-2013 athletic year. Doggedly cheerful quotes from the conference commish’s press release follow!

UT Arlington does not field a football program, and finished next to last in Southland West men’s basketball in 2010.

Not satisfied with welcoming one new member who’ll be fielding its first-ever varsity football program in 2011, one that can’t win in AA ball, and two more schools primarily in play for their basketball teams, the WAC has officially invited the University of Texas at Arlington to join the ranks of Division I-A, welcoming to a wannabe AQ BCS conference an institution that doesn’t play football and will apparently not be bound to try:

The Mavericks, who finished second from the bottom of the Southland West last season in men’s basketball, would join hoops members Denver and Seattle, UT San Antonio in year one of gridiron play under Larry Coker (hey, Larry Coker!), and Texas State, which boasts a nonwinning Southland tradition in an entirely different sport, as WACspansion teams in 2012. This move would follow the departure of Boise State to the Mountain West, Utah to the Pac-12, and BYU’s arrival in the WAC as a basketball member, and coincide with Hawaii, Fresno State, and Nevada bolting to the Mountain West and TCU decamping for the Big East. Got all that? New conference crest reads, in Latin: “You can get there from here.”

Who’s not impressed with the WAC’s new tactic of holding off conference collapse by sheer force of numbers (we’re assuming they’re counting each of their new hatchling schools as approximately two-thirds of one program)? Division I-AA’s own Big Sky Conference, whose member schools have reportedly rejected at least half a dozen come-ons from the flailing marauders of the West. And the conference commish wants to make sure everybody knows, in uncanny junior high locker room fashion, that it’s not because Big Sky teams couldn’t hack it in the mid-majors:

The term you’re looking for here is “Sick Big Sky burn, brah.” It’s understandable if it feels unfamiliar on the palate.

The WACspansion saga that’s decidedly not taken the country by storm is expected to reach its denouement this afternoon, when commissioner Karl Benson has scheduled a 5 p.m. EST teleconference to announce the conference’s intention to add three new member schools to its ranks: the University of Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners, the Texas State Bobcats, and the University of Denver Pioneers. The two Texas schools will compete in all sports, while Denver will serve as a conference member in everything but football.

And how will these three programs fare in replacing BCS top-five regular Boise State, offensive powerhouse Nevada, and Fresno State, which, well, Fresno’s probably nice at some point during the year, just never when we’ve been there?

ESPN’s Andy Katz is reporting that the University of Denver Pioneers, Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners and Texas State Bobcats will join the WAC, beginning in the 2012-2013 season.

UTSA and Texas State will join in all sports, while Denver will join in all except for football, as the university doesn’t have a program at the FBS level.

The WAC is set to add programs to replace Boise State, Nevada and Fresno State, all of whom are heading to the Mountain West. The San Marcos (Texas) Daily Record is reporting that the WAC is going be adding four new teams:

This move is all about keeping the WAC together as a football conference, because by losing Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada, they would have been down to only six schools, two fewer than the NCAA requirement.