…that is the question en vogue. I’m not making the painfully obscure reference to a scene in So I Married and Axe Murderer where Mike Myers and his co-star are running around one evening after their date imitating Russian ballerinas–although, I suppose that I have now made that reference…
We have all heard the lame excuses made by commissioners, coaches, and Presidents of BCS schools. Their lame duck arguments amount to little more than hot air and the sheer volume of hot air spewing from them is enough to resurrect the Hindenburg.
The BCS forced our hand and essentially gave the Mountain West Conference no choice but to step in line with the new BCS agreement or else lose out on any remote possibility to share a piece of their the cash cow. Please do not mistake that as acceptance or approval of the current system. Without signing the agreement, the MWC would have been completely on its own, would have taken multi-hundred-thousand-dollar pay cuts (at minimum) from bowls, and lost dozens of talented recruits. They were bullied into their decision so I hope people won’t be too critical of it.
The question is, “Now what?” People have been buzzing about an imminent invitation for Utah and BYU to join the PAC-10 for decades. Others are now talking about expanding the Mountain West. Here are my two cents on both schools of thought.
The chances of the PAC-10 opening its arms to become the PAC-12 still sound remote. While I think it would be beneficial to their conference to welcome in two storied programs with winning traditions, I think it is presumptuous to assume that they would invite us. Increasing their conference to 12 schools would probably boost their credibility against the “mighty” SEC and Big 12 but only if they improve their overall talent. An invitation for Utah and BYU would mean further travel for away games and the absence of the ever-popular game in Las Vegas not to mention losing a quality game against TCU from the schedule. Some teams in the PAC-10 would upgrade our schedules, while other would most definitely do the opposite.
With that said, I think the chances of this happening are very slim. I don’t think there is any evidence to believe that it will happen so I hope you are not one of the myriads holding your breath.
Another option over which the conference would have more control would be incorporating more teams into the MWC. Unlike many people think, it is not just the privilege of the more prominent conferences to raid the smaller conferences and pick out teams they want. Increasing the conference by one team to make it ten would, in my opinion, be counter productive. Each team would have to schedule one more conference game eliminating the chance to play against bigger programs. The change in how the MWC would be perceived would be negligible and perhaps even negative.
What if, on the other hand, we added three teams? Now we would be looking at splitting the conference into two divisions and perhaps scheduling one fewer conference game. It would still be difficult to get BCS programs to schedule games with our programs but the opportunity would at least exist. The MWC teams would have a little more control over the ever-elusive “strength of schedule” argument. This might be a good thing, but it also might be bad. The popular candidate to join our ranks would of course be Boise State, although I am reluctant to think that the WAC would just let them go. We would then be challenged to find two more decent teams to accompany Boise State in an expansion. Do I hear the faint cry of Snow College being drowned out by turkeys?
I’d love you hear what you think.
We have all heard the lame excuses made by commissioners, coaches, and Presidents of BCS schools. Their lame duck arguments amount to little more than hot air and the sheer volume of hot air spewing from them is enough to resurrect the Hindenburg.
The BCS forced our hand and essentially gave the Mountain West Conference no choice but to step in line with the new BCS agreement or else lose out on any remote possibility to share a piece of their the cash cow. Please do not mistake that as acceptance or approval of the current system. Without signing the agreement, the MWC would have been completely on its own, would have taken multi-hundred-thousand-dollar pay cuts (at minimum) from bowls, and lost dozens of talented recruits. They were bullied into their decision so I hope people won’t be too critical of it.
The question is, “Now what?” People have been buzzing about an imminent invitation for Utah and BYU to join the PAC-10 for decades. Others are now talking about expanding the Mountain West. Here are my two cents on both schools of thought.
The chances of the PAC-10 opening its arms to become the PAC-12 still sound remote. While I think it would be beneficial to their conference to welcome in two storied programs with winning traditions, I think it is presumptuous to assume that they would invite us. Increasing their conference to 12 schools would probably boost their credibility against the “mighty” SEC and Big 12 but only if they improve their overall talent. An invitation for Utah and BYU would mean further travel for away games and the absence of the ever-popular game in Las Vegas not to mention losing a quality game against TCU from the schedule. Some teams in the PAC-10 would upgrade our schedules, while other would most definitely do the opposite.
With that said, I think the chances of this happening are very slim. I don’t think there is any evidence to believe that it will happen so I hope you are not one of the myriads holding your breath.
Another option over which the conference would have more control would be incorporating more teams into the MWC. Unlike many people think, it is not just the privilege of the more prominent conferences to raid the smaller conferences and pick out teams they want. Increasing the conference by one team to make it ten would, in my opinion, be counter productive. Each team would have to schedule one more conference game eliminating the chance to play against bigger programs. The change in how the MWC would be perceived would be negligible and perhaps even negative.
What if, on the other hand, we added three teams? Now we would be looking at splitting the conference into two divisions and perhaps scheduling one fewer conference game. It would still be difficult to get BCS programs to schedule games with our programs but the opportunity would at least exist. The MWC teams would have a little more control over the ever-elusive “strength of schedule” argument. This might be a good thing, but it also might be bad. The popular candidate to join our ranks would of course be Boise State, although I am reluctant to think that the WAC would just let them go. We would then be challenged to find two more decent teams to accompany Boise State in an expansion. Do I hear the faint cry of Snow College being drowned out by turkeys?
I’d love you hear what you think.
4 comments:
I just love when my husband hijacks the blog! Screw the BCS! :)
Haha I thought to myself "This doesn't sound like Brynn". But I agree with your idea. My family has thought this way for a long time that dividing the conference would be the way to go. But I honestly don't know if any of these will happen for a while...let's just keep winning! Go UTES!!!
While Utah may get accepted into the PAC 10 one day, BYU never would because they would have to play basketball games on Sunday, and that would never happen. I wasn't a big fan of the conference being split when we were in the WAC, it seemed one division was cake walk and the other was tough, mainly because of keeping rivalries together. I really think our best and most likely option is to keep putting PITT, Notre Dame, Iowa St. and teams like those on our schedule, kick the crap out of them, and then after the four year evaluation is up, the BCS would have to grant the MWC access. Utah and TCU can do that on their own, I have no problems cheering against BYU in every game whether it help our conference or not. At least we have two BCS win under our belt.
What's 'utah?' And since when are you into charts? What's next- a powerpoint presentation.
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