Back in the day there was a distinct 3 tiered conference pecking order out west.

First it was: PAC > WAC > Big West

But when the MWC was created the WAC took the Big West schools and the Big West went away as a football conference.

So then it was: PAC > MWC > WAC

But now the PAC has been raided as other Power conferences have infiltrated the West Coast. So rebuilding the PAC creates a new pecking order:

B1G/XII/ACC > PAC > MWC

B1G: USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington
XII: BYU, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado
ACC: Cal, Stanford
PAC: Washington St, Oregon St, SDSU, Boise St, Fresno St, Colorado St, UNLV, New Mexico
MWC: Utah St, Wyoming, Air Force, Nevada, SJSU, Hawai'i, NMSU, UTEP

In this scenario, what would really help the MWC would be for them to convince Montana, Montana St, North Dakota St & South Dakota St to jump to the FBS. All of those programs are top tier in the FCS in new states within the MWC footprint and have solid followings by MWC standards.