The history of the Rocky Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference and the subsequent Mountain States Athletic Conference is best outlined in the following excerpt from the autobiography of E. L. "Dick" Romney, Conference Commissioner from 1949 to 1960:

These conferences were organized January 30, 1909, under the names of the Colorado Faculty Athletic Conference and with the following members: University of Colorado, Colorado College, and the Colorado State Agricultural College. On this date a set of eligibility rules and a constitution were formally adopted. The first rules were chiefly a codification of the generally accepted unwritten rules under which intercollegiate contests in the Rocky Mountain Region had been held up to this time. The Colorado School of Mines joined the conference November 4, 1909. The University of Utah was admitted March 26, 1910; the University of Denver, May 4, 1910; the Utah State Agricultural College, February 28, 1914; the Montana State College, January 6, 1917; Brigham Young University, January 12, 1918; University of Wyoming, January 3, 1921; Western State College and Colorado School of Mines and the University of Utah were present at the holiday meeting of 1909, and one from Utah State Agricultural College at the holiday meetings of 1911-12-13. The name of the conference was changed to the Rocky Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference on May 7, 1910.

Each of the institutions above listed maintained uninterrupted membership from the time of admission to the conference until December I, 1937, when the resignations of seven were accepted. The Rocky Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference then embraced the following members: Colorado College, Colorado School of Mines, Montana State College, Western State College of Colorado, and Colorado State College of Education.

The seven institutions that resigned from the Rocky Mountain Faculty Athletic Conference, December 1, 1937, were: University of Colorado, Brigham Young University, University of Denver, University of Utah, Utah State Agricultural College, and the University of Wyoming. They organized the Mountain States Athletic Conference. Colorado University withdrew from the conference May 23, 1947, requesting that the withdrawal become effective December 1, 1947. The request was granted, and Colorado University was granted membership in the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Association. The Mountain States Athletic Conference employed its first full-time Commissioner of Athletics as of July 1, 1949. Montana State University and the University of New Mexico were admitted to the MSAC June 1950.

In 1957 the name of Colorado's A & M College was changed to Colorado State University, and the name of Utah State Agricultural College was changed to Utah State University. In 1962 the Mountain States Athletic Conference voted to disband. The University of Utah, Brigham Young University, The University of Wyoming, and the University of New Mexico teamed up with the University of Arizona and Arizona State University and organized the Western Athletic Conference. Montana State University joined with Weber State College, Montana State College, Gonzaga University, Idaho State College, and the University of Idaho in the newly organized Big Sky Conference.