ROD TUELLER, the athletic director at Utah State, has not gone underground. He is not in mourning. He has not called in the punt team.
His reaction to the Western Athletic Conference's most recent snubbing of the Aggies - expanding to Fresno State, of all schools - has been this: If you can't join them, maybethey'll join you.
Tueller, along with other athletic directors with one hand on the lifeboats in the Big West Conference, has come up with a plan he calls matter-of-factly, "revolutionary and futuristic." It is his opinion that college conferences of the future needn't adhere to their traditional all-or-nothing structure. He is calling for the Big West Conference, to which the Aggies still belong, to create a football consortium that will allow non-Big West schools to compete within a Big West football alliance.
The idea is to make an attractive alternative for Div. I-A schools that are: A) Looking for a league affiliation that will help them with their scheduling, their administration (game referees, etc)., and their postseason bowl game tie-ins; B) Would be comfortable with a situation that wouldn't require them to play every other member of the league/consortium; and C) Need to play at least eight other I-A schools per year to maintain membership in the TV-rich College Football Association (CFA).
The Big West Consortium - which Tueller sees could grow to as many as 16 or 18 schools - would fill all of the above needs while allowing for what Tueller calls "structured independence."
He envisions that schools such as McNeese State and Southwest Louisiana, for instance, would be attracted to a football consortium with, say, a 6-game schedule - a schedule that would allow them to become elevated to full I-A/CFA status and yet would still allow them to continue to play traditional rivals with other league affiliations.
He also envisions that a school such as Utah State would be attracted to a football consortium that would allow it to continue to keep the likes of Utah and BYU on its schedule, and at the same time expand its horizons to affiliations with football programs that may be on a slightly higher plateau than the Big West as we've known it.
Tueller talks of the consortium enthusiastically, knowing that it, along with the Big West's decisions to add Nevada-Reno and move the California Bowl to Las Vegas, are positive moves in the wake of Fresno's defection to the WAC.
But when his eyes really light up are when he suggests, subtly, that the consortium might in time become attractive to current members of the WAC.
If it's true that leagues are becoming somewhat obsolete . . .
And if the consortium is successful . . .
Then why wouldn't certain WAC schools with West Coast geographical and climactic ties not be inclined to affiliate with the Big West?
Take San Diego State for example. The only viable reason the Aztecs have for belonging to the WAC is because of its football standing (guaranteed shared bowl revenue, bigger stadiums, etc.). In almost every other respect - especially in sports like volleyball and baseball and water polo - it would be better off playing other kindred spirit schools in California. The weather would be better, so would the competition, and every time you take a road trip you wouldn't be making a travel agent's week.
If a Big West football consortium becomes powerful enough, San Diego State loses nothing and gains a lot. And even if a Big West football consortium doesn't ever become as attractive as WAC football, just the idea of a consortium could influence the WAC, as well as other I-A leagues, to revolutionize their thinking and allow football-only members - in which case San Diego State could have the best of both worlds.
"The only thing we know for sure is that leagues are changing," says Tueller. "The WAC has expanded. I see the Pac-10 and the Southwest Conference doing something. The word is that the Big 10 may be looking to rob the Big 8. A lot more schools will be in our boat in the future - not fewer."
The sweetest ultimate revenge, for the Aggies and for Tueller, would be that after there's enough rearranging and upheaval in collegiate leagues, that the WAC would finally realign Utah State with its natural rivals, i.e. Utah, BYU, Colorado State, Wyoming, New Mexico, et al. To that end, the Aggies haven't unlisted their phone number.