[KChiefs1]

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/0...#storylink=twt

JACKSON, Wyo.
It could be a long, dizzying month for Boise State fans, administrators and coaches awaiting an invitation to the Mountain West Conference.

The invitation that was expected Monday from the Mountain West presidents meeting in this scenic resort town sounds like it's very much on hold.

Perhaps until the end of June.

Perhaps indefinitely.

"We don't have to make a decision Monday," Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson told the Idaho Statesman on Sunday night. "I don't think we're going to work under a timeline or any artificial deadline."

An up-or-down vote on the Broncos might have to wait until the college landscape stops shaking and the league knows exactly who is available.

The list of big-name teams left league-less by ExpansionPalooza 2010 could be impressive.

Colorado, which sits in the heart of Mountain West country, "kind of makes sense," Thompson said.

"Wait a minute," Thompson asked rhetorically during his interview with the Statesman. "Kansas State and Iowa State and Baylor and Kansas and people are looking for homes.

How does that affect our thinking?"

Answer: A lot.

If an athletic director makes a stand in Lincoln, Neb., and powerful lawmakers call in favors in Waco, Texas, and school officials fight for tradition in South Bend, Ind., does it cause a ripple in Boise?

It does during the Summer of Expansion.

See if you can follow: The Pac-10 is waiting on word from the Big 12 South schools, which are waiting for Nebraska and Missouri, who are waiting for the Big Ten, which is waiting on Notre Dame, which is hoping to keep its independent status and avoid seismic changes in the college athletic landscape.

The Mountain West might end up waiting on all of them.

And then there's the politics: Texas lawmakers are pushing for Baylor, a private school, to head to the Pac-16 rather than Colorado. Iowa State supporters want rival Iowa of the Big Ten to vote no on conference expansion to keep the Big 12 intact and stop expansion-geddon.

Conference expansion does indeed make strange bedfellows.

All that's at stake are billions of dollars, hundreds of years of rivalries and tradition and the fortunes of dozens of intercollegiate athletic departments.

By the end of the month, conferences could be radically altered - some enlarged, others decimated. Or very little could happen.

Now it's the nine Mountain West presidents' turn to navigate their way through the ever-shifting landscape - and find a way forward for their still relatively young league.

They have just as many questions as you do. Perhaps more. They are considering everything from whether the nine schools in the league still will be there next year to what happens if college football's biggest boys create four 16-team mega-conferences.

Before the presidents can begin debating the merits of adding the Broncos, they must figure out the head-scratching big stuff.

"I don't think we're quite finished with that," Thompson said.

They are working through everything.

Consider that conference members who famously broke away from the old 16-team WAC due to its geographic mass and scheduling nightmares discussed the possibility of expanding to, gasp, 16 on Sunday.

These are big, important decisions with long-term ramifications. Answers will not come quickly. Nor should they.

Boise State must notify the WAC of its intention to leave before July 1.

"Certainly somewhere between June 30 and Sept. 1, every FBS conference in America has a window that you have to announce your intention if you are leaving," Thompson said. "Those are really the only deadlines we have to work with."

No rush, right?

Having waited more than six years for an invitation, what's another few weeks?