Mountain West Salvation Groundswell

[CardiacCoug]

My pie-in-the-sky-but-not-Big12-best-case-scenario for BYU (right now, I reserve the right to change my opinion whenever I want):

- MWC expands to 16, forms two divisions:

Mountain
Houston
SMU
Air Force
New Mexico
Colorado State
Wyoming
UTEP
Utah State

West
BYU
Boise State
Fresno State
SDSU
UNLV
Nevada
San Jose State
Hawaii* (football only)

*** Gonzaga joins for basketball and Olympic sports in place of Hawaii.

Football plays 7 divisional games and one extra-divisional game. Obviously, there is a CCG, preferably in Phoenix.

Basketball plays a divisional round robin (14 games) and 4 games extra-divisional (2 home, 2 away) on a rotating basis. Tournament in Vegas.

BYU keeps ESPN deal until it expires. MWC tries to either buyout or renegotiate CBS TV deal, and BYU is free to join it when the ESPN deal expires.

Under this scenario BYU:
- keeps ESPN contract
- lets BYU broker big games with ESPN
- preserves some regional rivalry, keeps a foot in CA and TX for recruiting
- gives us more to play for than just a national championship
- makes a great basketball conference

I like that. Agreed that is probably as good as it could get for BYU short of a Big 12 or PAC 12 invite.

[doctorcoug]

Now that SDSU is back in the MWC, does this mean BYU will not be a returning member?

via a galaxy s3 far far away

[Coach McGuirk]

MWC will receive $18M annually for 22 football games and 26 basketball games including all 6 BSU home games. That is $1.5M per MWC team and less than the AmericanOne conference (20M annual/1.66M per).

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...ording-sources

[Blueintheface]

MWC will receive $18M annually for 22 football games and 26 basketball games including all 6 BSU home games. That is $1.5M per MWC team and less than the AmericanOne conference (20M annual/1.66M per).


http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/3/7/...-diaz-mma-news

Do you mean to add this link?

[Coach McGuirk]

Fixed.

[myboynoah]

MWC will receive $18M annually for 22 football games and 26 basketball games including all 6 BSU home games. That is $1.5M per MWC team and less than the AmericanOne conference (20M annual/1.66M per).

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...ording-sources

But they'll be playing for the MWC Championship. Who needs millions of dollars when you can play for the MWC Championship?

[cougjunkie]

If BYU were given a similar deal I would be all for the MWC. I am shocked at how much they are catering to Boise. Good decision by both BOise and SDSU staying.

[The_Douger]

They'll all be resentful of Boise getting more than the rest of them in a year or two. Same thing would have happened if we were there.

[Coach McGuirk]

They'll all be resentful of Boise getting more than the rest of them in a year or two. Same thing would have happened if we were there.

Same thing did happen. Which is why the second MWC contract had minimums for all teams and all kinds of bullshit. BSU is the new BYU. All that baggage starts to become ungrateful and then demands their fair share. Have fun BSU.

[UVACoug]

I don't know what some of you people are smoking. Independence is the ONLY choice BYU has, unless one of the Big 5 conferences give us an invite. Going back to the MWC, or going to the Big East (or whatever it is called), would be the end of elite football at BYU.

Why? Not because of money or scheduling or BCS games. It is because of recruiting. I am convinced this was the primary reason we pulled the trigger on going Independent. Utah going to the Pac12 gave them a recruiting boost ... there is no reasonable debate about that. BYU HAD to go independent in order to keep some resemblance of equivalence with Utah in the eyes of recruits, and it must stay independent to maintain that image.

I'm sure some of you will make the silly argument that Utah will not get a boost in recruiting because they will be a lower tier Pac12 team ... but that is silly. If you doubt me, go compare CU and CSU. There have been many years where CSU was the better team than CU (and in some year, AFA was better than both teams). Yet ... CU wins nearly every in state recruiting battle against CSU. Why? Because CU is a BCS team and CSU is not. It really is that simple. Recruits want to play on national television and they want to play big teams in big stadiums. They don't want to play in Laramie, Wyoming, Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Reno, Nevada in front of 20,000 people (or less). They couldn't give a crap about the MWC championship.

Recruiting is the life blood of football. If you neglect recruiting, your team will degrade ... that is simply a fact. Money is important, but all the money in the world can't make you win if you can't recruit (unless you start paying recruits ... which will never happen at BYU).

The great thing about Indy (compared to the crappy MWC and BE) is that it puts BYU in a better position with regard to recruiting and financing. Independence allows national television coverage of every game. It allows more money for facilities. It allows us to schedule big name programs that play in big stadiums. It gives us ESPN helping us schedule those games. I get that it sucks to play some of the crappy schedule filler games. I dislike those games as much as anyone. I agree that playing MWC teams instead of Idaho State or Middle Tennessee would be ideal. But going back to the MWC so we can have better filler games would be completely idiotic. The top of our schedule has never been better. We lose that by going to the MWC (having a conference schedule limits the ability to be flexible in scheduling big games immensely). We should not give up the top of the schedule so we can play SDSU and UNM rather than ISU and Middle Tennessee. That is just asinine.

As for the conference championship ... are you kidding me? You can't enjoy football without a conference championship to play for? This makes me think you are one of those collar popping, pink shirt wearing morons that doesn't understand anything about the game and only cares about the team's current record. Don't get me wrong, it is great to have something to play for. But there is SOOOOOO much more to football than conference championships. What happens when we lose to BSU early in the season? Is the season worthless from that point forward?

I think Bronco has the right approach. (I know that previous sentence is considered blasphemy to some of you people ... suck it). We shouldn't be playing for meaningless conference championships in crappy conferences. We should be playing for national rankings, and when things come together in special years ... yes ... national titles. Is it a long shot to think BYU will ever win another national title? Yes. But I would rather play for the long shot than take the crap sandwich that is the MWC. BYU has a rich history of being nationally ranked. Like Bronco has said repeatedly ... expectations at BYU are that we consistently finish in the Top 25. We shouldn't be worrying about beating SDSU for a chance at the MWC title. We should be worried about beating ourselves and our own history. The team (and the fans) should have the mindset that every year at BYU should be the best year BYU has ever had. Rankings are a metric that is clearly measurable and provides a mechanism for BYU to measure itself against past BYU teams and the rest of the country. Beyond that, we can look to our record to measure ourselves. We don't need validation from Craig Thompson.

The Bowl argument is completely hypocritical. People cry about independence being a season of exhibition games. The bowl system is nothing but glorified exhibition games. I would rather play 4 or 5 BCS Exhibition games every year (sometimes in our own stadium) than play a crappy Pac12 team in Las Vegas two days before Christmas (and that assumes that we even get to the Las Vegas Bowl).

This really is a no-brainer. If you were one of the MWC/BE bandwagon, there is still time to repent. Such a move would ruin BYU. It would be "giving up". BYU deserves better than that from the administration and from the fan base. Independence is not ideal. There are a lot of downsides. I was VERY skeptical of it when it happened, and would take an invite to the Big 12 or Pac 12 in an instance over INDY. Luckily, I think Tom Holmoe and President Samuelson get it. Holmoe isn't going to let idiot fans push him into something that is bad for the program.

INDY is FAR better than the MWC/BE, and the sooner some fans realize that and stop their inane bitching about everything ... the sooner they will start enjoying BYU football again.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Longest first post ever!

[Jeff Lebowski]

Preach it, UVACoug!

Nice first post.

[CardiacCoug]

Nice post, UVACoug. That makes a lot of sense.

Boise State and SDSU have looked ridiculous the way they agreed to jump to the Big East and then bailed. Glad BYU didn't embarrass itself by acting like those schools.

[LiveCoug]

Preach. That said, as it is, we ain't getting into a real conference any time soon, so if BYU could somehow find a way to get hoops back in the MWC, I'd be cool with that. Never football again.

[Shaka]

Independence is not going to be the savior of BYU's recruiting.


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