Conversation with an AD Part One - the UAC Rebrand

While I don't want the purpose of this blog to vary from its core, opinions and commentary on various aspects of the UT Arlington Mavericks Athletic Department, I have been contemplating in recent years how to do a little more, take it to the next level if you will. I attempted what follows last year, but obviously it didn't work, likely due to user error. I took a different approach, shook a few more hands and viola. 

On Friday afternoon, I had the genuine pleasure of a sit-down question and answer session "on the record" with the Athletic Director at UT Arlington, Jon Fagg. While I intended to make the interview a singular blog post, he allowed me to keep going. My thought process was if he offered 30 minutes, I was going to take 31. However, he let me go for over an hour and a half. As such, I really have to break it down into multiple parts. 

While I picked his brain about quite a bit of items, the drive home was filled with internal questions about things I should have followed up on more than I did, it was only natural. I did hit a lot of main points though. There is quite a bit of information in the conversation.

With that said, the Maverick Rambler presents its one-on-one with the AD.

UAC Find

Any time a university changes its conference affiliation, it creates headlines and is a hot topic. It creates conversations on a national scale where people who wouldn't mention a school are now discussing the changes. Some even try to present themselves as experts, though they knew little about the situation or school prior.

UTA, along with the remaining members of the Western Athletic Conference, certainly qualify as they and the members of the Atlantic Sun reorganized 15 schools into two conferences. The members of the two entities rarely garner much national attention so to hear all of these "experts" know the ins and outs of Tarleton State and Bellarmine make me chuckle.

However, I did find the following video on the WAC message board from the Big Mountain Podcast on the WAC being re-branded to the United Athletic Conference and the reorg with thew ASun. The Big Mountain guys tend to focus on all conferences in the western end of the U.S. and have more knowledge than the average folks.

A New Coat of Paint

There was big news from both a UT Arlington perspective and conference affiliation shuffling that came out this week. As has been the case for its entire history, the Western Athletic Conference will survive, despite the handwringing from the media and social media circles.

What was known prior to this week was Seattle University and Grand Canyon were out of the conference at the end of this month. Common belief among the remaining WAC members was good riddance to the second. That left seven schools, Abilene Christian, California Baptist, Southern Utah, Tarleton State, Utah Tech, Utah Valley along with UTA, for the upcoming athletic year. Seven is the minimum for an automatic berth into the men's basketball tournament.

California Baptist accepted an invitation from the Big West Conference several months ago and Utah Valley formally did the same last month. That would leave only five members for the 2026/27 athletic year. With limited options in the footprint, schools bailing for competitively weaker conferences and no Division II schools ready to move, people were predicting the WAC's demise.