With just five days remaining until a Sept. 1 deadline to inform the Mountain West of their 2011 intentions, there could be a thaw in the week-long news icing of BYU’s conference status.
Natalie Meisler, the Colorado State beat reporter for the Denver Post, reports that BYU is leaning toward remaining in the MWC and that the impasse between the two sides could be resolved as early as Thursday. This information comes from a number of (unnamed) sources, Meisler writes.
That latest bit of news comes as a surprise to BYU associate athletic director Duff Tittle, whose name I will never grow weary of typing and will look to cram into even non-BYU posts.
“Nothing has changed. BYU continues to explore all of its options. Eventually we’ll do what’s best for our program,” Tittle told both the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune.
Reached by the Tribune Wednesday night, officials at two MWC schools would neither confirm nor deny the Post‘s report
As recently as a week ago, MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said his conference was “feeling better today about the possibility BYU stays” after reports surfaced that the school would strike out on its own in football and join the WAC in all other sports. Those reports/rumors forced the MWC to reach into the WAC and pluck Nevada and Fresno State from its ranks, thus forcing BYU to have second thoughts about joining a six-school conference.
Since that “very good recent dialogue“, there have been very few indicators as to which direction the Mormon school may ultimately go.
One of the main — perhaps the main — issues for BYU seems to stem from the MWC’s paltry television deal with Versus and the CBS Sports Network. Schools currently pull in somewhere in the neighborhood of just $1.5-$2 million annually on the football side; with a state of the art television network situated on campus, it’s believed part of BYU’s goal of football independence was flexibility in that arena was/is to both utilize that facility and maximize their brand in a network deal with an entity such as ESPN.
Thompson stated last week that the conference recognizes BYU’s concerns regarding the television situation, and has expressed “a willingness to work through some TV issues” with the school.
How far the conference is willing to bend over backwards for BYU Will Likely determine exactly where BYU is in 2011 and beyond.
