Page "Mountain West Conference" Paragraph 2

The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996, absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference ( SWC ) ( Rice, SMU, and TCU ), adding two from the Big West ( San Jose State and UNLV ), and Tulsa from the Missouri Valley.

After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided that the new WAC was over-sized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference.

The MW added a ninth team in 2005: TCU, also a former WAC and SWC member, which joined after four seasons in Conference USA.