Listen to the full interview with President James Hurley from Tarleton State University above, from The Andy Thompson Show on January 9, 2022.

On other presidents in WAC-ASUN

"It’s such a pleasure to work with nine other committed presidents and CEOs of their various institutions that have a like vision and a shared vision…

Southern Utah and Utah Tech are two incredibly committed institutions with two great presidents to work along side…"

On Oliver Luck being a consultant for the WAC-ASUN

We all know that there are some us that are ahead of others in terms of budgets and facilities etc…but we also know that a person like Oliver [Luck] who in my opinion is one of the probably top five most credible sources and athletic minds when it comes to football and navigating the road blocks and hurdles that may come before us…

On timeline

If you really think about it…the Big 10, the SEC, all of the power 5, those football conferences are really operating autonomous as we speak. Football is driving the train…

We have a goal of July 1st 2025, we are hoping by that time everyone will be in a position to make the transition to the FBS…

We know that takes a couple of different steps in the process with the NCAA and the CFP, that’s the group that controls football distributions etc…that’s another hurdle that we have to overcome, but we’re pretty positive that with Oliver’s leadership and the commitment of the presidents that we can overcome those.

Luck will audit each institution from budgets to facilities to personnel all of the things that we need to be successful individually at FBS institutions and then collectively as a conference. 

On opportunity for growth as an FBS institutions

"I love your president Biff Williams. Incredible leader and visionary…and when Utah Tech plays BYU (as an FCS team) that buy number could potentially quadruple for them when they play a Utah a BYU a USC, some of the schools in that region (as an FBS team) and it’s the same for us.

For example, we played TCU this year and instead of receiving $650 to $700 thousand, now we would receive $1.5 million. So it doubles for us…plus we can separately negotiate media contracts that could bring an incredible amount of additional revenue…on top of the ability to qualify for bowls and additional revenue opportunities…"

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