So, you thought all the conference realignment mess was settled for the time being, and you would be wrong. After the Mountain West Conference’s addition of Boise State, it looked good for the WAC’s splinter group, making the move to 12 teams and a potential spot as a BCS automatic qualifying conference. But Utah bolting for the PAC-10 put that on ice, at least for a little while. And with BYU announcement it is going independent in football and placing all other sports under the auspices of the WAC, the Mountain West seemed under assault.

Or not? MWC commissioner Craig Thompson held a late-night conference call saying that he didn’t know anything.

Calling most questions about BYU’s impending withdrawal from the league “hypothetical” and saying reporters would be better served by asking them of BYU, Thompson said that as of 9 p.m. MST Wednesday evening, “BYU is a member of the Mountain West Conference.”

BYU officials issued a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that they are continuing to explore their options, but neither confirmed nor denied the Tribune’s report, either.

But that’s not stopping the MWC from repairing the dam and inviting other schools to join, namely Fresno State and Nevada, who are — WAC members. The war between these two conferences is approaching incredible proportions. And let’s now review, as the Mountain West turns.

1. The conference ends 2009 with nine teams.
2. Boise State joins.
3. Utah leaves.
4. BYU leaves (allegedly).
5. Fresno State and Nevada join.

In its quest to expand to 12 teams, all the work behind the scenes will end up with the MWC up plus one, to 10. That’s without Utah and BYU, two of its heaviest hitters. Plus, Boise State is probably going to feel a little fucked by the whole situation, since the idea behind moving from the WAC to the MWC was to play tougher competition, and now the Broncos are stuck in a new conference with not only marginally better competition, but with two old conference foes.

It’s hard out there for the non-AQ fellas.

It may be the last significant move of the 2010 offseason conference realignment frenzy. The Pac-10, now at 11 with Big XII North defector Colorado, is about to take on Utah as its twelfth team. One might think that with all the flirting going on with America’s home of officially sanctioned sports like water polo and the latest resident of the NCAA’s doghouse, people are going to be slow on the trigger to declare this a done deal, but it’s seriously looking that way.

When asked about this report, a representative from the [Mountain West] Conference could neither confirm nor deny the alleged report. If sources are to be believed then, the deal to invite Utah has already been done, and is merely a formality at this point. All that would remain of course is the announcement from the PAC-10 and a press conference by the University of Utah.

The deal puts the MWC back into the second tier of conferences, and gives the Pac-10 the conference championship game it was looking for. On the other hand, Utah won’t have to worry about missing out on a BCS game. Maybe. Since Texas, et. al., decided to stay in the Big XII, with 10 teams the conference maintains its viability as a BCS-level conference. Adding one more good team at the AQ-level will certainly be interesting.

The prospect of a glut of one-loss teams at the top of the rankings is bad enough. This set-up further gives the possibility of no non-AQ team getting into the mix. And pretty much saving the current system of big-time college football. The way it had been going, there could have been four regional, erm, ultraconferences, basically forcing the BCS to blow itself up and institute a playoff with the FBS organized in divisions, leaving conferences to the other sports. It would make sense that the FBS would receive autonomy or full-on independence from the NCAA, and this reorganization of the sport at the top level would make schedules and such like a professional league, instead of between the schools and the conferences, as it now stands. A confederation to a central government.

But that brave new world is on the long-term backburner, if not gone at all.

That’s all she wrote, folks. Major college football, as you knew it from about 1996-2009, is over. The Big XII is done. All that’s left is the finalization of moves from outside the conference and what ends up as some truly bizarre scheduling in the 2012 season. Today, early movements in conference realignment went into overdrive.

Perhaps you heard that the Big Ten and Nebraska are now getting together. Conventional wisdom had previously held that Missouri would go, too, putting seven in the imagined Big Ten West and six in the Big Ten East. Add, say, Iowa State and Pitt and, oh, Rutgers, and you have a 16-team league. Word now is that Missouri and the Big Ten isn’t happening. Iowa State (and Kansas, too) are left in the cold. Any other expansion from the conference is also up in the air.

[Ed. note: Apparently we deleted a whole portion relating to the Pac-10 before publishing on the evening of June 11. Oops.]

Right now, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado are joining the Pac-10. That’s 15, brother. There’s got to be one more in the mix to balance the divisions.

Think it’s Texas A&M? Former Aggies player, coach and national championship-winning Alabama coach Gene Stallings, who is a regent, is reportedly pushing hard for A&M to be the seventh team in the SEC West. Stories coming out have it that A&M has been given a 72-hour deadline to decide if it’s going to make the Pac-10 move. If you can predict what will happen there, you’re a better person than we are.

More word out today is that Miami and Virginia Tech have not been in talks with the SEC, which means that if A&M joins, the best chances for an addition to the SEC East fall to Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Louisville. If A&M does join, the SEC will likely end expansion at 14 teams. We really doubt there’s any desire to add Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, SMU or TCU to the West. Each of these teams haven’t been that good, consistently, for a while, or bring money to the conference. Except for TCU, which, while small, has the DFW market to bustle in.

Yet, there’s another problem with the Great Gallopin’ Horny Toads. They’re in the Mountain West, with Utah. And another major move happened, with Boise State leaving the WAC for the MWC. As it is, TCU can stick where it is and do well, especially if the MWC absorbs the Big XII leftovers.

All of the above isn’t even considering rumors that Conference USA will help finish off the Big East as a football conference. Or that if the SEC goes take a team or two from the ACC, that the ACC will go back and take a few more from the Big East.

Ain’t the off-season fun?