WAC still stuck in the middle of nowhere

MeanGreen61 · July 27, 2006

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/10241

College Football | Sports

By MATT JAMES

The poor Western Athletic Conference. Nobody wants to be here.

This is Nicaragua. A third-world country. Second fiddle. First loser.

No, not Boise. Boise is nice, in the sense that you'll probably never witness a drive-by shooting, or become a pawn in a bank-heist-gone-wrong while trying to deposit money during your lunch break.

If you're here for WAC media day in July (as Fresno State coach Pat Hill and wide receiver Joe Fernandez are), and not trying to win a football game in October, it's lovely.

The WAC, however ... well, the WAC is still an ugly stepsister. As much as the BCS is pretending to be fixing the problem, the WAC is still irrelevant on a national scale. And any time you have a conference with three potential Top 25 teams - Boise State, Fresno State and Nevada - and it's irrelevant, then something's wrong with college football.

Oh, everyone will put on their big grins today. The coaches will talk up the conference, but how many of them would be here if they had their choice?

Hal Mumme is at New Mexico State because he was run out of Kentucky a few years ago. Mike Price went from punch line to the WAC after his little strip club incident, then his team, UTEP, got out of the WAC.

Dan Hawkins left Boise State for Colorado last year, which is leaving one of the most stable programs in the country for a nuclear reactor.

If you're coaching here, you're either on your way up or on your last chance.

Dennis Erickson, the newest WAC coach and biggest name, has said he wanted to come back to Idaho, where he started his coaching career.

Ah-ha! A coach who wanted to be here. But was it the sentiment, or the fact that the 49ers are paying him a seven-figure salary to coach anywhere besides San Francisco?

If the BCS didn't render the WAC irrelevant, then it sure didn't help. Fresno State doesn't get in a better bowl game by winning the WAC. There's no grand prize money, no automatic bid, no reason for fans to even care about a WAC title, other than the ones who like to complain that coach Hill hasn't won one yet.

To which you should reply, "So what?"

Hill is one of the few WAC coaches who could be at a BCS conference school and chooses to stay. He wants to play at the highest level, too. It's natural. So he took the whole program to the highest level.

In truth, Fresno State football isn't even part of the WAC anymore. Hill is trading conference titles to play tough nonconference games and a chance to compete nationally.

The Bulldogs could play four Louisiana-Monroes, maybe go undefeated, and be the best darn team the MPC Computers Bowl ever saw. That's not to try to sell Hill's philosophy. It's just the only choice the BCS leaves. Try to move up in the BCS rankings or play for nothing.

Many BCS conference schools are playing Louisiana-Monroe to become bowl eligible. Fresno State has to play Oregon and LSU to become bowl eligible.

Now, you might ask, why not find a happy medium? Couldn't they go undefeated and play a decent schedule and make a BCS bowl? None of those decent schools want to play Fresno State. They're trying to become bowl eligible themselves. Getting blown out by a WAC team is not what they're looking for. They don't have to make a BCS bowl to collect BCS money. The conference does it for them.

In an answer to the problem, the BCS has added a fifth game this year, and dangled a treat in front of the ugly-duckling conferences: Conference USA, the Mid-American, the Mountain West, the Sun Belt and the WAC.

Instead of having to make the top six in the final BCS standings to get an automatic bid - as only Utah has been able to accomplish from a non-BCS conference - a champ from one of the lesser conferences has to finish in the top 12.

Or, if it finishes ahead of one of the BCS conference champs and is in the top 16, it gets an automatic bid and the multimillion-dollar prize that goes along with it.

Last year, under these rules, TCU would have made a BCS bowl at No. 14, because Florida State won the ACC and finished No. 22.

"We've got a better chance now," Hill says.

In 2004, Utah, Boise State and Louisville (which was in a non-BCS conference at the time) all finished in the top 10. But it was Michigan at No. 13 and Pittsburgh at No. 21 who got BCS bids by winning their conferences.

So even under this year's new rules, Boise State and Louisville would have been left out because Utah would have taken the conferences-that-don't-count bid.

Never mind that WAC teams have to travel farther and play on weird nights of the week to get a little TV exposure.

It will still probably take a perfect season for Fresno State to make a BCS bowl. And at the end of it, no one will care whether or not they won a WAC title.

July 27, 2006

What a misleading headline. Then it's followed by "The poor Western Athletic Conference. Nobody wants to be here."

They's rather be in a BCS conference that gets an automatic playoff. And who of the five mid-majors wouldn't? But, no one wants to be there? Well, we know that the three that came from the SBC are thrilled to be there. San Jose State is just happy to be in 1-A. Of the other five, La Tech takes the WAC over the SBC but would rather be in CUSA. I'm sure that Fresno, Boise and Hawaii would prefer to be in the Mountain West but they're not disgruntled enough to try to leave and go independent. Nevada has made little or no noise about leaving. Every coach is happy to be where they are. Six of the nine coaches have overall winning records. One is making a half million as a first year coach. Bicknell at La Tech is one of the losing coaches lifetime, two games below .500. The only other coach with a losing coach is the coach at Utah State and last year was his first as a head coach.

Yes, the bowl system is tipped in favor of the automatic qualifying conferences and needs changing. Isn't that how the article should have been fashioned? Why slam any non-BCS conference as being in the middle of nowhere?

Three potential Top 25 teams should be something to praise, not condemn.