Boise St. to the MWC?

[Nexus]

Mountain West school presidents don’t engage in their annual spring meeting for another 20 days, but already speculation about the hottest non-AQ topic has run rampant.

 

Boise State, the crown jewel of the Western Athletic Conference and the apple of the Mountain West’s eye, is caught in a love triangle between the two conferences and the most attractive one will ultimately win.

 

According to rumors here and here, the Mountain West will issue a formal invitation to the Broncos, something that has been heavily speculated for the past couple of years. Boise State has until July 1 to declare its football future for the 2011-12 season.

 

If Boise State decides to join the Mountain West it would forfeit its revenue for the 2010-11 season (about $1.5 million), but would keep $3 million if it went to a BCS bowl.

 

Now, there are a ton of reasons Boise State should go, including better competition and a possible BCS automatic berth, but the reasons to stay might weigh as much.

 

Big Ten spring meetings begin today and the hot topic -- as it’s been for weeks -- is conference expansion. The Big Ten appears to be the catalyst in expansion and the rest of football’s 109 schools are dominoes waiting to fall. Included in those pieces could be several of the Mountain West’s top schools.

 

The Mountain West happens to reside in some prime poaching areas between the Big 12 and the Pac-10. The Big 12 member institutions have been the subject of Big Ten expansion rumors for months and speculation has grown from the Big Ten adding just two teams to possibly five. If the Big 12 loses any teams, the most logical fit would be a pair of the Mountain West’s upper-tier teams to keep the strength of the conference and open some new television markets.

 

But the Pac-10 plays a role in this, too. Unlike the Big 12, the Pac-10 doesn’t fear losing membership because it’s isolated on the West Coast. However, that isolation also means that only a limited amount of teams are available that meet the Pac-10 criteria both athletically and academically. According to Fanhouse.com, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott says he was given a mandate to bring a "fresh set of eyes to the league" and Scott told the Boulder Daily Camera that he was not waiting for the Big Ten to make the first move. Scott also said that academics would be “of paramount importance to our presidents.”

 

So if the Mountain West loses teams -- and some expansion models call for almost the entire conference to be dissolved -- Boise State would find itself still without an automatic BCS bid, only slightly better competition than it had in the WAC and no ESPN TV deal.

 

Even though no formal announcement has been made, if the Mountain West wants Boise State, it’s probably already made an overture. It seems implausible that the conference would give the Broncos less than a month to decide.

 

And Boise State will have to determine whether it wants to take a leap of faith on the Mountain West or hold on for the roller coaster that will be conference expansion.

 

LINK

[GSG]

Sounding more and more likely on this one.

 

Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:26 am EDT

 

Boise State, Mtn. West looking awfully cozy ahead of MWC powwow

By Matt Hinton

 

 

Usually, any variety of speculative conference-hopping this offseason would fall into the ever-expanding category of "Today's hypothetical conference expansion scenario ..." Except in this case, with Mountain West admins coming together next week with a deadline in sight and Boise State waiting expectedly by the phone, the Broncos' long-rumored invitation to the MWC is sounding less and less hypothetical by the day:

 

Football power Boise State appears to be only waiting for an invitation to become the 10th member of the Mountain West Conference. That invitation could officially come as early as Monday when the MWC's board of directors meets in Jackson, Wyo.

 

Speculation around the MWC and the Western Athletic Conference is that Boise State will bolt from the WAC. Typical is the comment by Idaho athletic director Rob Spear, who recently wrote to Vandals fans in his blog, "I am predicting June 7 will be the day when the first shoe drops regarding conference realignment."

 

Readers may remember Spear for his refusal to board a Boise-themed plane last November, perhaps the fiercest moment in the history of a rivalry that hasn't been decided by less than two touchdowns on the field since the Broncos' and Vandals' old home, the Big West, was dissolved a decade ago. But even rival presidents would have a hard time begrudging Boise a move that would mean more money, less travel, better competition and, if the stars align, a shot at an automatic BCS bid. As you may be aware, that title comes with a pretty significant bump in pay grade.

 

To recap, the Mountain West must pass the BCS' three-pronged test for an automatic bid to one of the big-money bowls, which takes into account a) The average rank of each conference's highest-ranked team in the final BCS standings; B) The average computer rank of the entire conference lineup at the end of the regular season; and c) A complicated point system that measures the percentage of each conference's lineup in the top 25 of the final BCS standings, all over a given four-year period.

 

For the next BCS negotiations, the four-year period in question will be 2008-11, and though the MWC's "Big Three" – BYU, TCU and Utah – have kept the conference in pretty good standing so far according to criteria a) and c), the bottom half of the league remains an anchor when it comes to the averaging the standing of the entire conference. By that crucial measure, the Mountain West ranks seventh; the BCS requires a top-six finish in all categories. (With likely exceptions for the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, Pac-10 and ACC, of course, should the need ever arise – those carefully negotiated bowl tie-ins must be fulfilled, after all. Otherwise, based on the first two years of the ongoing evaluation period, the ACC would seem to be on particularly thin ice.) Adding Boise's nearly flawless record to the mix would dramatically increase the MWC's chances of making the cut; if nothing else, it would provide enough of a boost to increase their chances of being granted an exception, however farfetched that scenario may be. Above all, it makes the Mountain West a stronger conference on the field, and therefore a more marketable conference off it – certainly too good to remain in the television ghetto of Versus and the mtn.

 

Boise State president Bob Kustra is openly in favor of a jump to the Mountain West. Two MWC power brokers, New Mexico president David Schmidly and UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood, have publicly advocated for adding Boise in their local papers in the last month.There seems to be no doubt of an impending invitation from the few Boise-centric media outlets, which seem psyched to descend on Jackson Hole en masse for the big news next week. If it doesn't come then, they won't have to wait long: To get the Broncos on by 2011, the deadline for an invitation is July 1 or bust.

 

Yahoo! Dr. Saturday Link

[Nexus]

It makes sense.

[GSG]

It makes sense.

 

I tried telling my uncle that last year (He works for TCU's football team). He told me to quit sniffing BSU's jock

[Nexus]

It makes sense.

 

I tried telling my uncle that last year (He works for TCU's football team). He told me to quit sniffing BSU's jock

 

 

You need to get an update from him once it goes through.

[GMoose]

I'm not sure I like this. This is one step closer to the MWC getting an automatic bid...

[huzkerbob]

I'm not sure I like this. This is one step closer to the MWC getting an automatic bid...

 

What's so bad about that?

[Nexus]

I'm not sure I like this. This is one step closer to the MWC getting an automatic bid...

 

What's so bad about that?

 

 

Explain your concerns, Moose. I'm curious.