LAS VEGAS — It is human nature to push boundaries, to not just walk up to the line of what is accepted but to walk over — just so you’re 100% clear where the actual line is.
We do this a million times throughout our life. Maybe you weren’t allowed to sit next to your buddy in 5th-period English class, but you might as well try when a substitute rolls in. Maybe your parents didn’t yell at you for not cleaning your room, so you’re gonna leave that Snickers wrapper on the floor. Maybe your spouse doesn’t love when you take boys’ trips, but the fellas are headed to Mexico and she hasn’t left you yet, so why not?
Gloria Nevarez was in a tough spot. She took over as commissioner of the Mountain West Conference on January 1, replacing the only person who has ever held the title in Craig Thompson. Over 24 years, folks knew where Thompson’s line was. They knew what they could get away with and what they couldn’t.
Then Thompson left and, well, it’s only human nature to see exactly how far you can drive the newbie.
So far, Nevarez has pushed back.
In reality, this saga with San Diego State has not amounted to much. After numerous letters, claims and talks of buyout payments, we are in the same place we started: San Diego State is a member of the Mountain West.
That happened the hard way. The Aztecs sent what sounded like a resignation letter and Nevarez held them to that. She stayed firm on the buyout doubling after June 30. She did not, initially, graciously welcome them back with open arms, at first withholding a $6.6 million payment to San Diego State even after the school insisted it was back in the Mountain West.
At Mountain West Media Days on Wednesday, speaking publicly for the first time about this drama with San Diego State, Nevarez softened her tone.
“I’m proud to report that earlier this week,” Nevarez said, “we came to a resolution and San Diego State will continue to be a member in good standing in the 2023-24 season.”
To those who say that Nevarez backtracked from her original hard stance, she is clear: “I think we’re a better league with San Diego State in it. If any of our schools were in that position now, I’d say the same thing. In the same manner that our policies are there to protect us if and when a school leaves, I think it’s OK for them to come back as well. I mean, it happened a while ago with San Diego State and Boise State.”
Nevarez goes back to those policies a lot— including the one that states a conference member must pay double the normal exit fee if they announce their departure after June 30.
To Nevarez, she was doing nothing crazy in her handling of San Diego State. She was simply following the system in place and not giving exceptions.
“Athletic directors and presidents have to look out for their university. I understand that,” Nevarez told Bronco Nation News. “My job is to look out for the conference. 99% of the time, those two objectives align.
“When they don’t, we have policies — not to be overly preventative of a school leaving, but at least to give us enough notice and financial cushion to either make good on our media contracts or back-fill a new league.”
Nevarez is not naive about our current landscape of college athletics. Nor is she fooled into thinking San Diego State is ready to ride or die in the Mountain West. If the Aztecs get an invitation to join the Pac-12 tomorrow — sayonara.
In some ways, Nevarez paints the Mountain West as a stepping-stone conference, which isn’t wrong, but is rarely ever uttered by a conference commissioner. She pointed to TCU and Utah, not so much as examples to follow, but precedents of teams using the Mountain West to elevate themselves to greener pastures.
“And I think that’s OK,” Nevarez said. “As long as those of us in the Mountain West take care of the Mountain West and protect it.”
Then Nevarez turned the conversation to the future. And predictions about conference realignment rarely ever come to pass, but Nevarez said aloud what folks in Boise have been voicing for over a decade.
“You’ve gotta think if you’re Boise State during this whole question about San Diego State,” Nevarez said, “at some point, when it’s our turn, how is this going to apply to us?”
The Broncos know exactly how it will apply to them. Nevarez has already showed them.