UNLV Rebels Director Of Athletic Erick Haper Speaks On Conference Realignment

The UNLV director of athletics, Erick Harper, speaks about the upcoming conference realignment.

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It has been an eventful year for both the UNLV Rebels and the Mountain West Conference. After this season, the conference will face realignment with teams both leaving for the new Pac-12 and others joining from other conferences around the country. Some changes have already started to take place, like the addition of the Grand Canyon Lopes to the basketball schedule for the Runnin' Rebels and Lady Rebels; however, the majority of the moves will take place following the conclusion of this academic school year.

This is obviously a massive change for UNLV and everyone else involved," Harper said. "The UNLV director of athletics, Erick Harper, spoke with the official UNLV website about the upcoming realignment and had a lot of interesting things to say on the topic. Most intriguingly, he spoke about another inevitable realignment coming in the near future.

UNLV Rebels Director Of Athletics Erick Harper On Conference Realignment In The Mountain West

"When it comes to conference realignment, I’m someone who looks at and considers everything — short term and long term — before ultimately determining what’s best for us. And based on the current landscape, we felt the best decision for us was to stay in the Mountain West.

For one thing, the Pac-12 is not what the Pac-12 once was. It’s the same logo but without USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Utah, it’s not the same conference. And that’s no disrespect to those schools that are in the Pac-12 right now.

Also, there’s going to be another conference realignment — everybody knows that. What that’s going to look like, who knows? If anyone tells you they know exactly how everything is going to shake out, they’re absolutely full of it. The only certainty is that those programs that have a strong history of success, reside in strong media markets and are consistently ranked at seasons end are not changing conferences. However, there can be surprises as we have seen in recent years.

The good news for us is that we no longer have to worry about paying an exit fee if we receive an offer to join a power conference.

For now — and as I’ve said many times when the topic of conference realignment comes up — we simply have to continue being the best possible UNLV that we can be. And wherever things fall, they fall."

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