Who Lurks?

The next part of my conference realignment breakdown deals with the sleeping giant in this whole shuffle.

No, not Texas. Not Notre Dame. Not the SEC. It is time we talk about the Mountain West.


I’m going to speculate that we are closer to a college sports landscape where either/or/both the Big East and Big 12 are gone or cease to be relevant. This day is coming closer than we think, possibly dialed in by the end of THIS week.

This is where the Mountain West is fully aware of their opportunity. Yes, they have screwed things up (like their TV network, hosting a conference tournament in Denver and nobody came) but they have been ahead of the game at times. I think this is paying off right now. News came out that TCU could reconsider leaving the MW and joining the Big East basically… well basically because who the hell knows what the Big East is going to look like. More importantly, the whole damn point of leaving the Mountain West and joining the Big East was to be in a conference that has that automatic football bid. Well, what if they are actually leaving the conference that is about to swoop in and snatch that automatic bid? They have to seriously be considering this…right?

I actually was emailing with a former boss/coworker about this exact potential scenario on Sunday night. That this could potentially happen… and it would be fascinating. Not because the Mountain West would gain another strong football power, retain significant media coverage in Dallas/Texas, and have a compelling reason to be the conference with the automatic bid… but because has a school ever backed out of joining a conference when they are in current lame-duck status with their current conference? I tend to follow sports and can’t recall this type of thing ever happening…

But think about the Mountain West. Let’s say THEY got to 12 teams… had a conference championship in Vegas (which is what the Pac12/16 should do btw) and it was Boise State/TCU/San Diego State/Baylor/Fresno State type matchup, people would watch. And if that was the case, and you had the top two teams in the conference playing for a title… and chances are they would probably both be ranked… wouldn’t this be provide significant momentum for a conference in search of an identity?

Here is the thing… have you seen the new Mountain West conference logo? Can you tell me, beyond Boise State and San Diego state, the other schools in the Mountain West conference? No. But if Baylor and TCU join/not leave and you have a 12 team conference that is easily the 2nd biggest/best conference west of the Mississippi River, I bet you some tv network would love to have this as part of their portfolio, right?

You could even split the teams into the following divisions:
Mountain: TCU, Baylor, Air Force, Colorado State, Wyoming, New Mexico
West: San Diego State, Hawaii, Boise State, Fresno State, Nevada, UNLV

As a conference you would have the following tv markets covered too: Boise, San Diego, entire state of Hawaii (for what that’s worth), Fresno, Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver, Fresno valley, and the state of New Mexico. Yes, you’re not going to get 20 million a year per school for the rights to these games…but would half of that be out of reach? I don’t think so… and I’m guessing 10 mil a year would be HUGE money for these programs.

I’ll take it a step further… let’s say the Mountain West really wanted to fuck around and go to 14 schools…with the solid conference alignment that made a ton of sense, they would be very attractive for someone like Houston, Rice, Tulsa or UTEP to join. Right?

Now… if I’m the Mountain West. I stick to 12. Nothing else. Learn from what happened with the WAC and how, exactly the Mountain West came about. But be aware… sleeping giant.