With today being July 1st the Mountain West officially welcomes three new members and loses another. A big welcome to the Hawai'i Warriors, Nevada Wolf Pack and Fresno State Bulldogs. Our three year plan to dismantle the WAC is now two thirds complete.

TCU is now a member of the Big 12 and I wish them the best. With all the stupid realignment that is occurring, the Horned Frogs being reunited with their old SWC mates is the one move that actually makes sense.


Here is a little intro video that the MWC put together.

Here are some of my random thoughts on the new members.

HAWAI'I

Having Hawai'i as football only member is really the best of both worlds. Renewing the UH-UW rivalry and the Paniolo Trophy (if we can ever find it) is great. Unfortunately we we won't actually play Hawaii for at least two years due to the new scheduling arrangement. The chance to have a 13th game and take a trip to the islands is also appealing. Creating a 2014/15 vacation fund now.

It is hard not to love Hawaii football. The culture, high powered offense and the late kickoff times are all very appealing to any college football fan. Not having to deal with sending our Olympic sports halfway across the Pacific is perfect.

NEVADA

The Wolfpack have been one of the best non AQ teams the last couple of years. They already have a great rivalry with UNLV. Chris Ault and is pistol offense is fun to watch and tough to stop. So people don't like the Nevada logo but count me as a fan. I certainly expect Wyoming and Nevada to develop a solid rivalry over the years. I feel like Wyoming and Nevada are very similar schools and on equal footing.

Also, how does the basketball team produce so many NBA draft picks? Impressive.

FRESNO STATE

It is going to take me awhile to get warmed up to Fresno State. They have a fantastic baseball and softball team which the league needs. I just have a big problem getting past the Bulldog logo. I've never liked it and wish you would stop making that poor dog wear a shirt all the time. I'm a mascot/logo geek and Fresno State really does nothing for me.

My only real experience with Fresno fans was back in 2009 for the New Mexico Bowl and it was decent. We'll so how things go as conference mates. Will certainly root for you to repeat that 2008 run as national champs in baseball.