That's interesting considering a few Big Sky schools (Montana, Eastern Washington Cal Davis, North Dakota) along with a couple other schools (South Dakota, South Dakota St) were approached by the WAC when that conference was about to disintegrate.
I've always wondered what would have happened if the leadership of the state of Texas (which forced Baylor in the B-12 two decades ago in allowing the Texas state schools to merge conferences with the B-8) required that they leave the SWC (and its history) behind for the remaining Texas schools (SMU, TCU, Rice & Houston). That conference could have added schools like Tulsa, Tulane (now in the ACC), New Mexico, New Mexica St, instead of the WAC (in a fit o ridiculous ambition) growing to 16 schools (and almost immediately dividing into different cliques, splitting a few years later with the Mountain West), which eventually led to the WAC's demise. A surviving SWC may have also saved the WAC.