Two inevitabilities from the end of last season didn’t take long to surface:
- The Mountain West wants a guaranteed slot in the BCS.
- The Urban Meyer renegotiated contract watch has begun.
My sympathies lie with the Mountain West, but, honestly, one great year doth not a great conference make. However, if the conference kicks the Pac-10’s butt for another year or two, and the Big East keeps sending the likes of Cincinnati to the Orange Bowl, who knows?
Doubtless Meyer will get his money. And he does deserve to be better paid than the Hat of Baton Rouge.
Get The Picture 
Not only does Meyer deserve to be paid more than Hat, he deserves more than Saban and more than the $4.4M that Carroll of SC is getting as the highest paid coach.
How many have two in three?
It took me many years to give the devil his due when Spurrier was coaching UF. It’s taken me fewer years to give the devil his due now that Meyer is coaching UF.
LikeLike
If the MWC happened to be located on the east coast, they’d regularly be beating ACC and Big East foes. Not to mention that there have been reports — though denied by the university — that the MWC has invited Boise St to join.
This happened to be a shining year, but it’s nothing too out of the ordinary. What might be more of a concern is the continual underperformance in the ACC and the Big East. What more does the MWC need to do to prove they should be considered?
LikeLike
I was going to say be there as long as the BCS Conference hogs have been at the feeding trough.
Then I remembered that the Mountain West was probably around before the Big East was even formed.
If the ass-kicking they gave to Alabama doesn’t do it for them, probably nothing will.
LikeLike
The MWC is actually fairly new — used to be part of the WAC. Personally, I think the WAC and MWC champions ought to have a play-in game on Championship Saturday with the winner given an auto-bid. That would create another great game most years (Utah vs. Boise this year, with TCU and BYU regularly in the mix), help one of those teams strengthen its schedule/case to be included among the big boys, and potentially remove a totally untested team (like last year’s Hawaii) from contention before a BCS embarrassment.
Of course, the option I would take if I were Ultimate Commissioner of College Football would be to also make the ACC and Big East play a play-in game, because fair is fair. And maybe scrap the Western play-in game with the condition that Boise, Hawaii, and Fresno join the newly auto-bid MWC to make it a 12-teamer.
I’ll be expecting that call from Fan-in-Chief Obama any day now…
LikeLike
Utah also won their last BCS appearance against Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl. I would say 2-2 should say something for the MWC.
LikeLike
That should say 2 for 2 or 2-0.
LikeLike
NM – love the play-in idea with the MWC vs. the WAC.
LikeLike
I would just dump the automatic bids BS if I could make the decision.
LikeLike
I would just dump the automatic bids BS if I could make the decision.
Then why have conferences at all?
LikeLike
I would just have a playoff, and let MWC have one of the 8 slots. 🙂
The ACC has been kinda stinky lately, but there are a lot of historically good teams in there. FSU, Miami, Clemson, and Georgia *cough hack argh* Tech to name a few.
Conferences have down times. I am sure the ACC will recover at some point. Not that I care if they don’t.
-Michael
Muckbeast – Game Design and Online Worlds
http://www.muckbeast.com
LikeLike
The MWC was formed as an 8-team league in 1999 and added TCU in 2005.
I say prove it over a longer period of time. I also think that the Big East will probably get stronger as time goes on. One of those teams (Cincy, USF, Rutgers) will be able to hold onto their coach long-term and build a powerhouse.
LikeLike