https://x.com/mattnorlander/status/1737560247651148089?s=46&t=vbvQwezqgghb15NcOXGpAA
At least momentarily. All sports other than football and baseball.
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Classic. It’s like the first lesson in negotiation: always ask for a Cardinal and a Bear so that you end up with a Cougar and a Beaver.
This should be pretty good for the WCC overall. It’s a bit of a mismatch, but so was BYU. Competitively, these are teams that would compete for those 3-6 slots each year, so it raises the quality of the conference by deepening the middle.
Poor Kyle Smith thought he was upgrading to the Pac-12 only to get thrown back into the WCC 
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I would hope the WCC will get some significant money for doing OSU and WSU a favor by giving them a league to play in for two years until they can resurrect the PAC 12 into whatever it morphs into. I do think that OSU and WSU got screwed by the other PAC 12 schools in the mass exodus so it is good that they have a place for their other sports to play for two years. The impact on the long-term WCC schools in sports like baseball, softball could be negative so I would hope that we ar not negatively impacted. Baseball was starting t look good but OSU has been a perennial NCAA team. Our womens soccer should not be impacted but the other sports could suffer.
I like it. Gives the WCC more clout with WSU and OSU joining for a period of time. Competition will just make us stronger and raises the overall profile of the WCC.
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Baseball (and football of course) are not included.
It’s surprising to me and curious why WSU/OSU just didn’t expand their Mountain West football partnership to include all other sports??? Clearly one side or the other wasn’t interested. I guess the travel for WSU/OSU is marginally better in the WCC than the Mountain West. And I’d say WCC soccer and volleyball are probably stronger than the Mountain West, so maybe that was a draw???
Not sure how I feel about this especially if it’s only a 2 year thing. Yes, gives more visibility in the short term but I don’t want the WCC to turn in to Conference USA or the American Athletic Conf which have been solid mid-major leagues but are what I would also describe as ‘turnstile’ leagues with various schools coming and going, always looking for a better option. I bet most people here would have a hard time accurately naming more than 50-60% of Conference USA or the AAC whereas they could probably get darn close if not 100% accurately identify all of the much more stable Mountain West.
I think what happened was that they couldn’t make the PAC2 adoption of the MWC work. The two year deal aligns with the end of the MWC media rights contract. The OSU/WSU have the Pac12 fortunes and won’t go to the MWC formally lest it jeopardize their legal rights. OSU/WSU may also have wanted only certain schools to join, but Gloria Nevarez held them all together, especially after humbling SDSU just a few months ago when they wanted to jump.
What the WCC needs to be careful of is the Zags using this as an opportunity to blow the WCC up in two years with the best of the MWC, OSU, WSU, and a couple WCC schools. Giving the Pac2 a landing spot in the WCC is good for now. But they have a knife behind their back, as does Gonzaga, and Stu needs to see it coming.
I think these schools didn’t want to be part of the MW. They see themselves as “Power 5” schools and going full MW membership would pigeon hole them.
Not sure, just my thought. Academically, the MW isn’t much and maybe they hold themselves in higher light (although, I’d probably argue OSU/Wazzu were well towards the bottom of the academic rankings in the P12)
Thanks, I missed the part about baseball not being included. Thought it was just not football.
I’m not sure I understand why baseball is not included…football is certainly understandable, but excluding baseball just doesn’t make sense to me.
When is the last time the WCC had a public school in the conference ? I know that Reno and UNLV were in the conference years ago
Link dosen’t to work…
Oregon State is a power house and I think they assume they are better served as an independent? All I can think.
Sorry, re: link. Works for me 
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You got it…Nevada (Nevada-Reno at the time) was most recent public full member to depart in 1979, though they stayed around as an associate member in certain other sports in to the 80’s maybe early 90’s.
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According to The Athletic, baseball is still a possibility to the WCC, but going the independent route is also on the table.
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Oregon State, Washington State settle with departing Pac-12 schools - ESPN
The above article initially discusses the league settlement but then mentions the WCC and also explains some of the next steps and NCAA requirements for WSU/OSU to maintain the Pac-? as a viable conference. They have a 2 year grace period from the NCAA to get the Pac membership back up to at least 7 and as a league have to sponsor at least 12sports. The Pac brand has value and I’m sure WSU and OSU are hoping to take advantage of that. A Pac / Mountain West merger with adoption and use of the Pac brand and sunsetting of the Mountain West still makes the most sense to me and suspect that is what will happen once the MWC media contract expires in 2 years. Maybe Maybe WSU / OSU also have designs on drawing GU as the only non-football member. Regardless, I don’t see WSU / OSU staying in the WCC in any manner beyond the 2 years.
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the creation of a superconference of OSU&WSU + MWC + “top” teams from WCC into the new PAC…hmmm, this won’t bode well for SCU unless HS demonstrates some postseason success.
Neither will happen…
SCU won’t get invited to any kind of merger between OSU/WSU/MWC. If it did happen, the only question would be whether they invite Gonzaga and SMC, or just Gonzaga.
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I figured this was coming. Smith didn’t want to get hauled back into the WCC. I’m not convinced that Stanford is a great job with all of the ACC uncertainty, not to mention flying to Boston/Dulles/Raleigh every other week January through March. But if he can turn the Cardinal around a bit, then maybe he looks for a more stable high major program.
I hope SCU gets to play the Smith-led Cardinal a couple times. Stanford will want some decent local OOC games given their brutal ACC travel schedule. And SCU has given Smith a couple good games while he was at Wazzu.
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