Conference Affiliation History
From 1925-39 and again from 1954-68, Nevada was a member of what closed down as the Northern California Athletic Conference. In 1969, Nevada joined the West Coast Conference, but remained independent in football.
Eventually, this arrangement proved unsatisfactory for Nevada, who by 1975 was the only public school left in the WCC. At the same time, Gonzaga, a charter but non-football member of the Big Sky Conference, was facing pressure from the conference to either leave or add football (which they had dropped in 1941), as they were the only non-football member of the conference (and only private school as well).
A deal was then worked out in which Gonzaga and Nevada would swap conference affiliations in 1979. Gonzaga joined the WCC where it remains to this day, while Nevada moved to the Big Sky. Both new affiliations were the best institutional fits at the time.
By the early 1990s, Nevada had become one of the better football teams in what is now the Football Championship Subdivision of NCAA Division I, advancing to the title game in 1990. Nevada decided to upgrade to FBS in 1992, which required them to leave the Big Sky, which did not accept non-football members at the time (this will change in 2014). Nevada found a home in the Big West Conference, where in-state rival UNLV had been playing since 1982 (they would leave in 1996).
By the late 1990s, the football side of Big West had been unstable due to membership changes, so in 2000, Nevada joined the Western Athletic Conference, where they would remain for 12 years. The WAC itself became unstable in the early 2010s, with the first move being by Boise State, who moved to the Mountain West Conference starting in 2011. This influenced Nevada to move there as well, starting in 2012. As a result of that move, Nevada once again was conference rivals with UNLV (who formed the MWC with 7 other former WAC schools in 1999).
Read more about this topic: Nevada Wolf Pack
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