Mountain West teams looking to bust BCS

New Mexico 36, Arizona, 28.
UNLV 23, Arizona State 20.
TCU 31, Stanford 14.
Four games, four road-victories for the Mountain West Conference over the Pac-10.
Is it time to start taking the MWC seriously?
“One week out of 10 years doesn’t make you a BCS conference,” MWC commissioner Craig Thompson told the Los Angeles Times. “But it’s one of those weekends that we must continue to have.”
The MWC has four team’s undefeated after three weeks of football, including No. 14 BYU and No. 20 Utah. But, as with any other mid-major conference, those four’s schedules raise doubts. Of those four undefeated teams, only three wins have come against teams from a BCS conference.
The top six conferences — the SEC, the ACC, the Pac-10, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the Big East — all receive automatic bids to a BCS bowl game for their respective champions. The bid essentially is an acknowledgment by the BCS that those six conferences are so good, that by simply winning the title makes a team legit.
For the mid-majors like the MWC, conference champions have to meet certain qualifications to make it into a BCS bowl. The champion, a term apparently considered lightly by the BCS, must finish in the top 12 of the BCS standings or in the top 16 if ranked above a champion from the Big Six.
And that’s just to get into a BCS bowl game. A chance at the national title? A mid-major team might as well forget about it.
Boise State, from the Western Athletic Conference, finished their 2006 campaign undefeated and could not earn a spot in the championship game, with one-loss teams Florida and Ohio State playing for the title. The final polls only gave Boise State a No. 5 ranking.
Fellow WAC member Hawaii finished last year’s regular season 12-0, but was only given a Sugar Bowl berth while two-loss LSU played for the title. However, the BCS likely considers Hawaii an example of their system working. The Warriors were pummeled by SEC’s Georgia 41-10 in the Sugar Bowl while LSU went on to win the title game decisively.
“Right now, I think it’s all about money — it’s not about the best football that can be played,” TCU head coach Gary Patterson said. “A lot of people would say out there, ‘Nobody wants to watch somebody from the Mountain West play in a BCS game.’“
With this year’s MWC looking to be the annual BCS buster, will BYU or Utah tear away at the BCS’ money-first perspective?
“I think everybody likes the underdog,” Patterson said.
For the MWC’s sake, let’s hope so.

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Verify you are human:

Enter the characters in the image above: