Editor’s note: This is the first in a “Climb higher” series of stories examining UTEP’s move to the Mountain West Conference. The Miners football team opens MW conference play Oct. 3 against rival University of New Mexico.
The No. 1 motive that kept coming from UTEP’s “Welcome to the Mountain West” news conference, mouthed by everyone who got in front of a microphone, was that the Miners are going home.
“Entering the Mountain West Conference on July 1 feels good, it feels right, it’s where UTEP belongs,” voice of the Miners John Teicher said. “It’s home. It’s home. The Mountain West Conference is home.”
Home is a conference where half the 10 teams are in the Mountain Time Zone, up from one (UTEP) in Conference USA. Home is with old rivals such as New Mexico, who UTEP first played in 1919 and has played 79 times, Wyoming and Air Force, among the schools that broke out of the old WAC in 1998. They left UTEP stranded in the wilderness for more than two and a half decades.
This happens at a nadir for UTEP as it comes off a string of sub-par seasons in the big-ticket spots (2-10 football, 11-20 men’s basketball, 13-17 in women’s basketball last season) with struggles in most of the other sports as well, except volleyball, rifle and men’s golf.
Generally speaking, these struggles have gone on throughout this decade, and indeed for much of UTEP’s 22-year run in Conference USA.
This comes at a time of a rebrand for its mascot Paydirt Pete, its first rebranding of the mascot since 1999, and an aggressive Mountain West blitz on social media.
UTEP published a video on Instagram Wednesday, July 1, showing it pasting a Mountain West sticker on landmarks around El Paso, such as a bench at San Jacinto Plaza, a wall at Memorial Gym and on a plaque celebrating the “Home of the 1966 NCAA Champions Texas Western Miners.”
Why is UTEP going to the Mountain West?
When UTEP moves home, it’s also joining a higher-profile conference that will mean more revenue, more television exposure and potentially more opportunities for at-large bids to NCAA tournaments. That will mean another selling point in recruiting student-athletes.
This is also going to raise the cost of living, and UTEP boosters have responded to the move with a wave of donations that have UTEP on a better footing going into a better league than it was in with CUSA.
Across the board, for some time UTEP has needed a culture shift for an athletic program that was largely playing like it was in the wilderness. Here it is.
“While Conference USA has been good for us, we’ve been misaligned in terms of our conference affiliation,” Athletic Director Jim Senter said. “Many of the schools in the Mountain West Conference are in the Mountain Time Zone and we have a lot of history competing against. For us to get back to the Mountain Time Zone and predominantly be playing our conference games in the West is a huge, huge deal.”
What he’s getting at is the fit is more natural for UTEP, which is no longer a two-hour flight past the west end of Conference USA.
MWC brings familiarity with opponents, cities
When the Mountain West originally broke off the WAC, UTEP was still in a conference with other Texas teams and for some time was with SMU, Houston and Rice. Then they left for better places (23 of the 138 schools in the FBS are Conference USA alums), CUSA turned its eyes east to schools like Delaware and Florida International and UTEP found itself in a room with a bunch of strangers.
To be sure, UTEP isn’t familiar with everyone in their new conference, like North Dakota State, Northern Illinois, Grand Canyon and Cal Davis, but there are plenty of people they and their fans remember. And there will be some familiar views at away games in destination locations.
“We should be in the Mountain West because we have mountains,” booster Bud Warnke said. “The No. 1 reason is it will give the people who support UTEP an opportunity to travel to nice places and see good people and great athletics. The second thing is, I think we can really compete in the Mountain West.
“Am I going to Vegas? Yes. Am I going to Hawaii? Yes. Am I going to Phoenix? Yes. I’ll go to all those places.”
‘I wanted to go up a conference’
He may be seeing better athletes there, on both sides of the field and court.
“I wanted to go up a conference,” said men’s basketball player Reece Miller, a transfer from William & Mary. “The CAA (Coastal Athletic Association), there are a lot of great teams there, but I wanted to go up a conference, be on a platform where I can show what I can do and be on a team that has won in the past.”
Another men’s basketball newcomer, Jace Whiting, spent the 2024-25 season at UNLV and saw the MWC first-hand.
“I know the Mountain West,” he said. “At this level, everybody gets taller and longer, the windows get shorter, the speed of the game increases. A couple of coaches asked me how we stack up against those teams and I’m excited how we will. I see a lot of that in this team.”
Money flowing in after move announced
To get the players, UTEP will need to compete in a better league, which will take more money and UTEP’s conference transition initiatives, “Climb Higher” and now “Reach the Peak,” so far have raised an estimated $10.2 million. In the 2022-23 year, before the move to the Mountain West was announced, UTEP athletics raised an estimated $3.9 million.
“We have seen significant increases in donors making gifts to NIL,” Senter said of the fund that pays athletes. “We’ve also allocated a large portion of the increase that we’re going to get from the Mountain West into NIL and rev share.
“No question (the Mountain West is more expensive). Officials cost more, financial commitments like membership dues cost more. Going to Mountain West basketball will cost more. Mountain West fees are double what we’re paying. It’s because they pay more money to be more competitive with the top of the group of 5.”
To put numbers on it, UTEP paid $8 million to leave Conference USA. Media and television revenues in the Mountain West will be around $4 million per year, compared with $2 million in CUSA. Membership dues are reportedly $640,000 in the Mountain West, and while CUSA doesn’t disclose that number, Senter said it’s half the Mountain West number.
That increase in television revenue is coming because UTEP will be playing in front of more eyeballs on TV sets.
“The expected increase in attendance at our games and more attention to El Paso as a city, in the other cities where our new opponents will find us, like Albuquerque and Las Vegas, we’re going to be on television in those cities,” UTEP President Heather Wilson said.
“There will be pride for the city of El Paso. This transition will also create an opportunity for the spirit of El Paso to shine bright and more broadly.”
Mountain West returns to Texas
For it’s part, a Mountain West Conference in transition is excited to get back in Texas, a state it hasn’t been in since TCU departed for the Big 12 in 2012. The immediate impetus to add UTEP stemmed from the loss of five schools to the re-forming Pac-12, giving UTEP the opening it has craved since being left behind in the 1998 Mountain West jailbreak.
“The addition of UTEP restores historic rivalries with several of our member institutions within the geographic footprint, provides valuable exposure in the great state of Texas and contributes to our priority of maximizing the student-athlete academic and athletics experience,” MWC commissioner Gloria Navarez said.
What for UTEP has been a long, long anticipated journey West has begun. UTEP is home.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: ‘Climb higher’: Why UTEP moved to Mountain West to face old rivals
Reporting by Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
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By Bret Bloomquist, El Paso Times | USA TODAY Network
