Sympathy For The Mountain West

Dr. Saturday is all over the Mountain West's push to get invited to the BCS dance...which is like, totally gonna fail and stuff. i personally think that the Mountain West is just as worthy of a BCS at large as post-Miami Big East is, both of them have defeated heavily favored SEC teams in the Sugar Bowl this decade, but the Big East seems to be in decline after the Pat White/Rich Rod West Virginia era has come to a close and Louisville has fallen off the map entirely, while Utah has had 2 undefeated seasons this decade and BYU and TCU are annually in the top 25. but yeah, it's not gonna happen. no way, now how. the Big Boys and Notre Dame don't wanna share any more of the money than they have to. and losing another at large bid that could be going to a 2nd Pac 10 or Big 10 team means that those conferences will do what they can to kill playoff talk and BCS expansion.

three thoughts i had about the issue.

1. Expand the Mountain West. hell the league is only in it's 10th year... having formed in 1999 when Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming all decided that the WAC had gotten WAY OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL back in the 1990s when it had expanded into a 16 Team behemoth that had schools traveling all over the United States (i mean seriously, WHY are Hawaii and Louisiana Tech in the same football conference?) so those 8 schools said fuck it! and formed the Mountain West. now they could always see the era of their ways and rejoin the WAC, but really the WAC is about as weak as the MAC is as far as quality football teams. the best bet would be for the Mountain West to pull an ACC and pillage a 2 quality teams from the WAC (Boise State & Fresno State) and then get Houston from Conference USA. that would give the Mountain West 12 teams 4 of them being annual lower tier powers (BYU, Utah, TCU, & Boise State) & some schools with fertile recruiting grounds (Houston, San Diego State, Fresno State). the Mountain West would instantly become more respectable just by having another team with BCS experience and a winning tradition in Boise State and then by adding more schools they'd be able to expand the Mountain West network to more cable providers and get more exposure and more $$$!!! also it wouldn't be a bad idea to strike up a deal with ESPN and become Thursday night darlings like the Big East has done...if the WWL was interested, that is. more exposure and more money = more power and influence and a better chance to kicking your way through the front door and into the party. or at least that's what i think would happen...i am probably totally wrong about this though.

2. if you are Utah and looking out for your own ass you might go talk to your Mormon brothers BYU and convince them to jump ship with you. both Utah schools could make a push to become the 11th and 12th members of the Pac 10 (there's no evidence that the Pac 10 wants to expand but adding two schools from the same state would make sense as far as adding two strong programs who are rivals and have had success in the past vs. lower tier Pac 10 schools). hell Utah and BYU joining the Pac 10 would make the conference stronger considering both of those schools are doing a lot better than either of the Washington teams. it might also bring a little more competitive balance to the Pac 10 by splitting into into two divisions. a South division that would feature USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Arizona, & Arizona State and a North division with Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, BYU, and Utah. but Utah and BYU jumping ship doesn't really solve the Mountain West's problem...but then again without either of those schools the issue doesn't even exist anymore.

3. add another BCS game. the Cotton Bowl (which with the new Cowboys stadium seems like the best bet) and the Delicious Chicken Bowl are both making a push to become members of the BCS in 2011. why not go ahead and add 1 of them to the BCS party, therby giving us 12 bids to BCS bowl games. 1 of them could be an automatic bid for the Mountain West champion and the other 1 becomes an at large bid that could go to another worthy team from 1 of the Big Conferences or a non-BCS school.

just some thoughts. not that i think they are particularly good ones...but they existed in my brain and i decided to share.

hey look, an actual post about college football!