A little over a month after they announced that they would dissolve their leagues and form one new mega-conference, Conference USA and the Mountain West have ended that course, reports Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports. McMurphy breaks it down on why this won't be happening:
However, if the leagues dissolved, then they would lose their NCAA tournament units -- teams earn about $250,000 for their conference for each round they advance in the NCAA tournament and that money is distributed to the conferences after a rolling six-year period. Dissolving the leagues would forfeit C-USA and the Mountain West millions of dollars.
And, as we know, money always speaks. Losing that money outweighs whatever the new league could have received in a new television contract. As it stands now, McMurphy's source believes that there is no front-runner when it comes to either merging the two leagues or simply work out some sort of alliance.
Sixteen teams currently comprise the football portion between the two leagues, but expanding this to as many as 24 teams is still possible.
Expansion -- it never ends.
Head to SB Nation College Football for more in-depth coverage of the 2012 NCAA college football season.