BYU will leave Mountain West

BYU announced today that it will leave the Mountain West Conference, move its football team to independent status, and take its men's basketball team and other sports to the West Coast Conference.

The move is effective June 30, 2011.

There had been numerous reports over the past few weeks that BYU would indeed take its football team out of the Mountain West and become an independent.

The move makes sense since in-state rival Utah will also leave the Mountain West after this season and join the Pac-10. Colorado was also invited to join the Pac-10. BYU was not invited.

As we've touched on in a past post, BYU's move to a football independent is risky. The Mountain West Conference, with the additions of Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada, coupled with TCU, is in prime position to gain an automatic bid from the BCS in the coming years.

BYU will hold a press conference on Wednesday when school officials will hopefully discuss why they decided to make this move.

As far as the other sports, there had been reports that BYU would join the Western Athletic Conference. But with Boise State leaving for the Mountain West and Fresno State and Nevada announcing they too were joining the Mountain West after this season, the prospect of BYU's other teams joining a depleted WAC wasn't an ideal situation.