San Diego State Makes Another Miscue In Attempt To Leave Mountain West
This is getting embarrassing for the Aztecs
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Not marked as confidential?!?!
The drama between San Diego State and the Mountain West is catnip for June and July college football fans. There are no games going on or even practices, but the news is plenty.
Currently, the Mountain West is standing by the Aztec’s initial letter that said that San Diego State “intends to resign” from the league.
Those words are killer and very important. San Diego State said they were now planning on staying in the league. However, commissioner Gloria Nevarez says that San Diego State started the process to leave the league and owes the buyout money.
San Diego State has bungled this every step of the way from president Adela de la Torre. The latest issue is about trying to keep the first letter quiet.
That initial letter had the “intends to resign” and was delivered to the school presidents of the Mountain West.
However…
Live look at SDSU. https://t.co/ECbnRF7Jie pic.twitter.com/Gju3mAAJeG
— Mountain West Wire (@MWCwire) July 6, 2023
The letters were obtained via On3 about any and all correspondence regarding these letters. Well, San Diego State’s president sent the first email out and then followed up later to not share the details with athletics directors.
Sending it after the fact was an error and Hawaii’s president was shocked there was not anything to indicate the sensitivity of this correspondence.
“I was surprised the letter did not include a ‘Confidential’ watermark,” Hawaii president David Lassner replied in an email the following day to Nevarez and the 10 other presidents.
The reason behind this is to avoid leaks or the public being able to secure an open records request as the majority of the Mountain West schools are public universities.
Nevarez followed up on San Diego State’s request.
“In working through the process with SDSU, Adela has just requested that Presidents not forward the letter to Athletic Directors to limit the chance of it becoming public,” Nevarez wrote to the presidents on June 14. “I’m guessing some may have already forwarded by now. The Board should keep SDSU’s requests confidential until it has a chance to meet and confer. I’d advise keeping your athletic directors updated verbally without sharing the actual letter at this time.
“If you’ve already shared with your athletic director, please remind them this is confidential until we agree on a communication strategy.”
What is mindboggling about this is how the Mountain West was very careful with its info so that info would not leak.
Days before and after the San Diego State initial letter was sent, the league had an athletics director meeting and the board meeting in Honolulu a week prior which had password-protected PDF’s and Dropbox links that expired.
The way de la Torre likely sent out this info was direct to .edu email addresses, and she did not say to keep this matter private.
This information likely would have gotten out one way or another but the Aztecs just stepped in their own way along the way with the wording of the letter and also not saying to keep this info quiet.
We will see what is next because the league is proceeding that San Diego State is no longer part of the Mountain West.
What is on the near horizon is that the heads of the conference will meet on July 17 to discuss SDSU’s ‘status’ in the conference. A meeting in which the Aztecs will not have a presence.
