Idaho Vandals Headed to Big Sky Conference in 2014

Idaho was pretty much the last team standing as the WAC collapsed around it. That all changed Friday when the Big Sky conference announced that Idaho will become the 12th member of the league in 2014.

The Vandals will be joining in all sports except for football, where they will become an FBS independent.

This is the right move, given that Idaho was been less than competitive in its time away from the Big Sky, where it was a charter member of the league. The team now returns home, with a much better travel footprint, and a stronger tie to its geographic rivals.

"For decades Idaho enjoyed very successful athletics teams across the board in the Big Sky Conference,''
said Big Sky commissioner Doug Fullerton in a release. "We expect the Vandals to enjoy success in our league again. Travel for Idaho supporters will be much easier as it plays the likes of Eastern Washington, Portland State, Idaho State, Montana and Montana State.

That the move flew under the radar for pretty much the entire weekend (and just made NBC Sports' College Basketball Talk blog's Morning Mix today) highly illustrates the lack of interest in the WAC that has been growing over the last few seasons. It is like the graffiti in the bad neighborhood that no one even notices after a while.

Given that the WAC is going to have more changes after this season, it remains to be seen how Idaho and anyone else that is left will be classified for the 2013 season.