The Conference that had the most insane realignment history was definitely the WAC. So just for fun here is a (slightly abridged/consolidated) history of that Conference.
It was born in a similar manner as the Big Twelve. The Border Conference got its best member poached in Texas Tech (SWC), while the Skyline Conference had it's best member poached in Colorado (Big 6). Instead of a merger between the remaining Border and Skyline Conference members, the haves ditched the have nots, and the original WAC was constructed as follows.
1962-78Border- Arizona
- Arizona State
- New Mexico
- Utep
Skyline - BYU
- Utah
- Colorado State
- Wyoming
Utah St and New Mexico St were the biggest names in each Conference to get "ditched" as a result of this merger.
1979-95In 1978 the Wac got raided by the Pac 12, who poached the Arizona twins. As a result they poached the top team from the Big West, San Diego St, along with the top two western D1 Independents, Air Force and Hawaii. In 1992 they raided the Big West again, adding Fresno as team #10.
- New Mexico
- UTEP
- BYU
- Utah
- Wyoming
- Colorado St
- Air Force
- Hawaii
- San Diego State
- Fresno State (1992)
This was the Wac's "glory line up" when they won a NC and a produced a Heisman winner. So basically just a bunch of teams riding BYU's coattails, more or less.
1996-99The Wac cleaned out the SWC's closet, adding SMUw, TCU and Rice. Additionally they raided the Big West for the third time, poaching their top two teams/markets in San Jose State and UNLV. On top of all that they also added D1 Independent Tulsa in order to create a 16 team mega conference with four "pods."
Quadrant 1- Hawaii
- Fresno
- San Diego
- San Jose
Quadrant 2- UNLV
- Air Force
- Colorado St
- Wyoming
Quadrant 3Quadrant 4This bloated alignment was about three decades ahead of its time. So half the members split off in order to form the Mountain West: BYU, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force, San Diego St and UNLV. TCU would depart for a brief stint in CUSA, before joining the Mountain West as well.
2000-04With most of the Wac's glory line up off to the Mountain West, what you were left with was a bunch of scrubs with a major East/West geographic divide. So of course they raid the Big West once again for their top two teams, Nevada and Boise St, to beef up the west, and then they added D1 Independent Louisiana Tech to the East block. There were no divisions, due to the unevenness of the geographic divide.
- Hawaii
- Fresno
- San Jose
- UNLV
- Nevada
- Boise
- UTEP
- SMU
- Rice
- Tulsa
- Louisiana Tech
It was in this era that Boise really took off.
2005-11CUSA raided the WAC for UTEP, SMU, Rice and Tulsa. So that eliminated the entire eastern block except for Louisiana Tech, who would become an extreme outlier, geographically. So they raided the Sunbelt (which the Big West had morphed into, after having to replace most of their western teams with southeastern teams) for Utah State, Idaho and New Mexico State.
- Boise
- Idaho
- Fresno
- San Jose
- Nevada
- Utah State
- New Mexico State
- Hawaii
- Louisiana Tech
The Boise domination continued through this stretch.
2012The Wac got raided by the Mountain West for Boise, Fresno, San Jose, Nevada, Hawaii and Utah State. They also got raided by CUSA who took Louisiana Tech. The Mountain West raid was actually two raids, the first of which the WAC tried to rectify with the addition of upstart San Antonio and FCS Texas St, allowing them to limp through one final season of FBS Football with the following lineup.
- New Mexico St
- Idaho
- Utah St
- San Jose
- Louisiana Tech
- Texas St
- San Antonio
After this season Utah St and San Jose were off to the Mountain West, Texas St, UTSA and Louisiana Tech were off to CUSA, Idaho moved down to the Big Sky (FCS) after crawling back to the Belt for a brief stint.
2013-21The WAC carried on without Football, essentially existing only as a place for New Mexico St to park their Olympic Sports while their football team carried on as an FBS Independent (after crawling back to the Belt for a brief stint).
There has been somewhat of a revolving door of D1 dregs and D2 call ups. I won't break it all down, but it primarily included
- Seattle
- Utah Valley
- Rio Grande (TX)
- Kansas City
- Chicago State
- Cal Baptist
- Bakersfield (CA)
- Grand Canyon (AZ)
Going ForwardWAC Football makes it's triumphant return at the FCS level, with a bunch of teams from Texas and Utah, poaching members from the Southland, Big Sky, and D2.
Football (all sports)
- Dixie State (UT)
- Southern Utah
- Sam Houston (TX)
- Lamar (TX)
- Stephen F Austin (TX)
- Tarleton (TX)
- Abilene Christian (TX)
non-Football - New Mexico St (FBS Independent for FB)
- Grand Canyon (AZ)
- Rio Grande (TX)
- Cal Bap
- Seattle
Now if they can somehow manage to convince NMSU to throw in the towel and move their FB team down to FCS, then they could probably poach N Arizona and Weber from the Big Sky, and possibly even Cal Poly and UC Davis, who are "Football only" members of the Big Sky.
