This time, it's the Aggies who are snubbing their neighbors

SALT LAKE CITY — For nearly 50 years, Utah State University fans and administrators have maintained that Utah and BYU sabotaged them. From the Aggie perspective, when the Western Athletic Conference was formed in 1962, their instate rivals turned away without a second glance.

Ever since, the resentment has festered. Schools like Fresno State, UNLV, San Diego State, Tulsa, TCU and Rice got the backing of Utah and BYU in the WAC and/or Mountain West, but not Utah State.

The Utes and Cougars didn't mind looking halfway across the continent — even across the ocean, in Hawaii's case — to find new teams. But never up the road.

So it is with great irony that Utah Valley University is claiming the very school that got snubbed for half a century by its neighbors is now dishing out the same treatment.

This time USU is apparently turning its back on UVU.

"At one point in time they were in support of us," said Wolverine director of athletics Mike Jacobsen, "and that's kind of changed recently."

The backdrop in 2011 is the continued upheaval in college sports. As teams search for a place in the new landscape, the Western Athletic Conference is trying to stay viable. It is losing Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii. That has left the league scrambling to maintain enough teams for football. The WAC recently added Texas-San Antonio and Texas State, which do play football, but also Denver U., which doesn't.

Amid all this, upwardly mobile UVU is trying to move ahead by joining the WAC, partly because its own conference, the Great West, will soon be down to five basketball-playing schools. Based on campus visits and discussions, UVU expected to be invited to attend the WAC's June 13-14 conference meetings.

As Keith Jackson would say, "Whoa, Nellie."

"The WAC has not made a decision regarding future membership," said WAC commissioner Karl Benson. He went to to say there was "never an invitation" for UVU to either join the league or attend the June meetings.

But Jacobsen feels it is Utah State — the league's strongest member — that will decide whether the Wolverines join the WAC, and currently the support isn't there.

"For sure, if Utah State was in support of us being in the WAC, that would happen," Jacobsen said.