The Wednesday Rewind: Mountain West Struggles to Maintain Relevancy with Little National Exposure

Sep 8, 2012; Austin, TX, USA; New Mexico Lobos quarterback B.R. Holbrook (12) hands the ball off to running back Jhurell Pressley (6) against the Texas Longhorns during the first half at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Texas beat New Mexico 45-0. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-US PRESSWIRE

I spent all of last football season writing On Mountain High, a column that highlighted one of the underrated, “non-BCS” conferences and it’s journey to gain the respect of the elders – that dastardly BCS Championship and its BCS Bowl Game entourage. We’re a couple weeks in to the 2012 football season and despite Boise State opening the season on national TV against Michigan State, the Mountain West has rarely been featured on a national scale.

Take this past weekend, for example. There were ZERO Mountain West teams on national TV. Despite the potential upset of the century taking place in Albuquerque between New Mexico and Boise State, nobody outside the local markets saw any of the games. It was the type of game Boise State has made famous in the past decade. A big underdog team with seemingly no chance to pull the upset, going down to the wire with the heavy favorite. The only difference in Saturday’s script is that New Mexico failed to win against the best team to hail from a non-BCS conference in the past decade.

At season’s end, Boise State and San Diego State will leave to join the Big East, gaining “automatic” status into a BCS Bowl should either team win the conference. The Mountain West will then add Utah State and Hawai’i in an attempt to hold the attention of the BCS for a potential automatic berth down the road.

See, the BCS, personified, is like the coolest kid on the block and the Mountain West, since it’s inception, is like one of the younger kids on the block trying to become one of the six neighborhood youngsters that get to hang out with and enjoy the VIP treatment from the BCS and its four closest friends – Sugar, Rose, Orange and Fiesta.

Together, dubbed the BCS Bowl Games, they permit only six neighborhood kids to hang out with them based on the which of those kids have the best friends and the best connections. Unfortunately for the Mountain West, other conferences were already in place when it “moved to the neighborhood” in 1999.

If the Mountain West wanted to “get in with the cool kids” so to speak, they’d have to build a quality posse and try and grab the attention of the BCS Bowl Games, away from the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10/12 and the SEC.

Within a couple years of its inception, some of the conference’s “best friends” started performing well-above expectations and the BCS Bowl Games started noticing. In 2004, Utah became the first school outside the top-six BCS conferences to “hang out” with a member of BCS’s entourage by earning a bid to the Fiesta Bowl. They whalloped the Big East champion Pittsburgh, 35-7, to cap an undefeated season. The Mountain West finally had the BCS’s attention. During the next couple of years, things would only improve and the conference continued to grow.

The addition of TCU in 2005 and then the combined successes of TCU, Utah and BYU really had the conference rolling by the end of the 2009-10 season. By the summer of 2010, the Mountain West was ready to make the biggest addition to its posse of all and then approach the BCS for entrance into the “top six.”

Then, as if they realized their status as one of the “top six” might be challenged in the near future, the other conferences woke up and started making changes. By the time the Mountain West announced the addition of Boise State in June 2010, it was minor news compared to what would happen next.

As soon as other conferences started individual Regional Sports Networks by using The Mountain as an example, the Mountain West was suddenly behind the curve, their RSN was not as good as the newer networks. Chasing the big money offered by better television deals, Utah announced its departure from the conference within a week, BYU within a month, and TCU within five months of the conference announced the addition of Boise State.

Just two years after from announcing the biggest addition to the conference in its short history, the Mountain West shut down what was, at one time, the best thing it had going for it – The Mountain. The Mountain West was like the neighborhood kid who was the first to get a video game console. By the time a new console came out, the Mountain West’s had become obsolete.

It’s amazing how much the neighborhood can change in such a short span. Following the 2012-13 football season there will be another shakeup in the neighborhood as multiple BCS conferences will add new members. In addition, the BCS itself is expanding to include a four-team playoff – meaning more opportunities for the neighborhood kids.

If you are inclined to feel bad for the Mountain West, that’s understandable. But, it’s not all bad. Last Thursday it was announced that the Pac-12 and Big 12 are considering the creation of a new bowl game that would pit the Pac-12 or Big 12 champion against the best team from a group of five conferences, including the Mountain West.

Sept 22, 2012; Honolulu, HI, USA; Nevada Wolf Pack running back Stefphon Jefferson (25) runs the ball in for a touchdown against Hawaii Warriors during the second quarter at Aloha Stadium. Nevada defeated Hawaii 69-24. Mandatory Credit: Marco Garcia-US PRESSWIREThis announcement could not have come at a more perfect time for the Mountain West because, once again, something interesting is going on this football season. For the first time since losing its top three members, the conference is surprisingly competitive. It’s almost as if the other members are aware the conference’s top spot will be vacant and ready to be claimed by the next “best team” with the pending departures. The result, is a conference teeming with offense.

If you witnessed the Baylor-West Virginia points-explosion from last Saturday afternoon, you’re aware that major offensive outbursts are captivating. You can’t the channel for fear you might miss one, two, maybe three touchdowns from either side. Without a doubt, offensive football is fun to watch. Right now, the Mountain West features some of the top offensive teams and players in the country; check the stats.

• Nevada, Fresno State, Air Force and San Diego State all average better than 35 points per game. At 42 and 41.8 ppg, Nevada and Fresno St. are ranked 14 and 16, respectively.
• Nevada, Fresno and Air Force all average more than 500 yards per game while San Diego St. averages 425 yards.
• At 4-1, Nevada is the fifth-best offense in the country, behind only Oklahoma St., Baylor, West Virginia and UCLA, averaging 557.6 total yards per game.
• Fresno State, led by junior quarterback Derek Carr (brother of David) and senior running back Robbie Rouse, is ranked 15th in total offense with 512.8 yards per game.
• Nevada running back Stefphon Jefferson is averaging an astounding 175 yards per game and has scored 12 total touchdowns (11 rushing) to lead the nation in rushing yards, rushing yards per game, rushing touchdowns and individual points scored.
• Rouse is 11th nationally with 117 yards per game, and has scored 10 total touchdowns (8 rushing) which puts him tied for 6th place in individual scoring.
• Carr is ranked 9th in completions per game, with 27, and is the 22nd most efficient quarterback in the country with a 159.3 rating. He has completed nearly 70 percent of his passes and has thrown 14 touchdowns to only three interceptions.
• Dual-threat Wyoming quarterback Brett Smith, only in his sophomore year, has played just three games, but is currently No. 7 in total offense per game with 362 yards. Having run 123 plays and gained 1,087 yards, Smith is averaging 8.84 yards per play.

After shutting down The Mountain back in June, it was assumed this change would be a positive step forward for the conference in terms of national TV exposure. Now, with no RSN, the conference doesn’t control what games are and are not televised. It’s like the neighborhood kid finally traded in his outdated video game console, but then nobody would let him play with theirs.

On Saturday night, New Mexico trailed Boise State 22-0 at halftime and then mounted a second-half comeback in which they scored 22 unanswered points and had possession late in the game trailing 32-29. It was a game that was made for TV. Following the game, the Lobos remained upbeat despite the loss and all things considered, they should feel good.

One of the worst teams in the conference, a program that lost 41 games in the previous four seasons, almost beating the current best team in the conference and a program that won 96 games in the last 10 years? That’s the stuff of legends.

“I think we showed people that we’re not going to give up,” said Lobo linebacker Joe Stoner. “This isn’t the team from the past. This is a whole different era.”

It’s not only a different era for New Mexico, but it appears to be a whole new era for the conference as well. The only question now, is will anybody notice?