Las Vegas is still USC territory, plus UNLV will have difficulty in getting support from Stanford, Cal, and even USC academically. Like it (or aware of it) or not, USC is a school with academic chops and gets research money. Iowa State is possibly the least desired athletic program from a public university within the current BCS conferences. As a whole, only the private schools like Vandy, Duke, and Wake are at or near the same level. UNLV is actually one of the leading theatre and arts schools in the nation. Plus, the only other realistic option to have a 16th team would be UNR, and I think they would rather have the LV tv market. It's only USC territory right now because UNLV is not part of the same conference. Trust me, if UNLV joined the Pac-12, their football program would explode (in a good way). I think the Pac12/Pac16 would rather have San Diego State than UNLV. San Diego State wouldn't qualify academically for the Pac-12. Plus, they already have the California market, they honestly don't need SDSU. Sand Diego has the Chargers. Las Vegas has much more potential. If the Chargers move to LA, then SDSU becomes a lot more lucrative. Not sure how UNLV qualifies academically if SDSU doesn't. UNLV is much better academically than SDSU. The other option would be UNR, which is a much better overall university, but it's in a much smaller market. The ideal situation would be to get rid of WSU and get both. UNLV is not much better academically...take a look at any ranking, and they are about the same. WSU holds the Spokane market, which is bigger than Reno. Not by much, and overall UNR is a much better university than WSU. They are also growing faster (they're one of the fastest growing universities in the nation), and are much more athletically competitive than WSU. They already have UW for the Washington market. They really don't need WSU.