Mountain West Spite

The decision by the Mountain West to switch the Boise State-TCU battle scheduled for next fall from TCU to Boise to both punish the Horned Frogs for leaving the conference and reward Boise for joining is just the latest example of small mindedness on part of conference officials. Sure you are mad at TCU, despite the money and prestige the Horned Frogs gave the conference these past few years. But if the goal is to give what will be a loaded Boise team a shot at the national title game, decreasing the strength of schedule for Boise is not the way to do it. The team's marquee non-conference game is Mississippi in Oxford on September 3rd. If the Rebels--who need to find a QB--do not surprise everyone and contend in a loaded SEC West, then winning at TCU would have possibly been the best way for the Broncos to impress the voters. But perhaps that is not as important as the Boise faithful have led us to believe.

View From Bennett Avenue

Raise your hands if you thought we were done with all talk about schools switching conferences--at least until next year. But then a newspaper article outs BYU's desire to make like Notre Dame (well, athletically anyway) and become independent in football while having their other sports return to the WAC. The Mountain West then pounced on Fresno State and Nevada to replace BYU and a Utah program that jumped ship earlier this summer.
While Fresno and Nevada are fine programs, the dreams of glory that the MWC enjoyed after luring Boise State to join with the two Utah programs and TCU in what would be an excellent football conference have been officially dashed. They have lost ground and now have to hope that TCU stays as they will look attractive to a Big 12 shy a couple of members.
As far as BYU is concerned, they have always been an independent spiritually. Losing rival Utah to the Pac 10 ended their main connection to the MWC and so being independent makes sense as long as they can pull off the scheduling. Notre Dame knows that they have a long list of teams lined up to play them. BYU? I am not so sure as a trip there does not help with recruiting nor help most schools reach alumni. The Cougars will play you hard and yet a win against them rarely counts for as much as it should.
The WAC is obviously the big loser here. Good luck to them.