More Big Wins Needed to Scale the Mountain
By Tom Layberger
July 21, 2009
LAS VEGAS -- It hurt that it was them and not you playing in the big bowl game. It hurt that they pasted you 48-24 several weeks earlier and obliterated any chance of you winning a conference title. But when the bigger picture came into focus, you put those feelings aside – somewhat, anyway – and pulled for your bitter rival.
The Mountain West Conference has long struggled for respect among the bullies of the BCS and that is why even BYU was pulling for Utah – pulling for Utah, what in the name of Lavell Edwards is going on here??%#!@? – to beat Alabama in last season’s Sugar Bowl. And beat the Crimson Tide is just what the Utes did.
“As hard as it is to say, we kind of had to root for them,” said BYU senior and preseason all-conference tight end Dennis Pitta. “It’s obviously tough to root for your rival to win, but it was good for our conference and good for our team as far as national respect.”
Therein lies some of what coaches and players spoke about at Tuesday’s Mountain West Conference media session: national respect for the league.
If nothing else, Utah’s Sugar Bowl win demonstrated that the Mountain West can knock off an elite program from a more heralded conference at any given time on any given stage. While not basking in the landmark victory – and certainly cognizant that 2009 represents a new animal and the win in New Orleans does not count toward the fast-approaching season – there is now doubt that the victory and the play of the conference on the whole in 2008 is something worthy of note.
“I feel it was obviously a step in a very good direction,” said Utah all-conference O-lineman Zane Beadles, whose team ranked fourth in the country. “It showed that the Mountain West Conference plays very good football and we can beat good teams across the country. It was obviously a very good thing for us. There was some talk about how (the MWC) should be considered for the BCS and that is good, but we can’t stand still. There is always somebody looking to knock you off and, as a conference, we need to continue to move forward.”
In order to move forward and carry the momentum in the 2009 season and beyond, it is critical that the conference continue to defeat the more recognizable programs from the tradition-laden conferences when opportunity knocks.
“Just playing well won’t do you any good,” said TCU coach Gary Patterson, whose Horned Frogs have won 11 of the last 14 against BCS teams and have a pair of trips to ACC country this season with Virginia and Clemson on tap. “You have to win those games in order to move up in the rankings and earn respect. It’s not just winning a big game here and there, it’s about doing it consistently.”
The conference will have a couple of chances to attain national status early. BYU travels to Arlington, Texas on Labor Day weekend to take on national power Oklahoma in the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium. It’s a relatively short trip for the Sooner faithful that are sure to descend upon the Dallas-Fort Worth region.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for our team and our conference,” said BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall, whose Cougars stumbled down the stretch last season and fell out of the national picture before finishing 21st. “We earned the right to play in a big game like that. As far as BCS busters or whatever you want to call it, for us, it’s a brand new season and we want to re-establish credibility at the national level.”
A win in the Lone Star State would certainly do that and a follow-up victory over Florida State in Provo on Versus two weeks later would really provide amunition for BCS headline writers. A pair of victories would also undoubtedly provide senior QB Max Hall a boost in the early Heisman discussion. His name trickled out early last season, but there’s a big difference between beating an OU squad expected to be in the national title hunt as well as Mickey Andrews' Seminole defense and handily knocking off the downtrodden Washington’s and overmatched Utah State’s of the college football landscape as was the case in '08.
Hall and BYU also ripped Wyoming in the early part of last season. That was same Cowboys that stunned Tennessee the second Saturday of November while holding the Vols to a mere seven points. Granted, the wheels in Knoxville were falling off with Phil Fullmer’s tenure coming to an end, but it’s such a victory that Patterson said needs to happen and with some regularity.
The Cowboys will get another chance to rasie eyebrows when Texas visits Laramie on September 12 to kickoff Versus’ 2009 college football coverage.
“Any time there is an opportunity to play out of the league is a challenge,” said first-year Wyoming coach Dave Christensen, who knows a few things about the Big 12 after serving as Missouri’s offensive coordinator the past eight years. “It's going to be the biggest game ever played in the state of Wyoming. We look forward to the challenge. Will it be a difficult task? Sure. But we look forward to the challenge and we’ll be well prepared.”
Strong showings by the Cougars and Cowboys in those non-conference games should continue to provide a boost to something that is becoming noticeable: the MWC picking up the pace as far as recruiting.
“We have had a lot more early commitments,” said Patterson, whose Frogs finished seventh in the polls a year ago. “It’s not just about players choosing us over other Texas schools; there are many young men choosing our conference.”
Regardless of what conference they represent, Wyoming will not be expected to knock off Texas. But on the whole, surprises are becoming fewer and fewer when the subject involves Mountain West “upsets”. That’s one of the reasons why the vacancy at New Mexico appealed to new Lobos coach Mike Locksley.
“I can tell you, the three BCS conference I worked in cannot compare top to bottom the way this conference now does,” said Locksley, who coached at Illinois (Big Ten), Florida (SEC) and Maryland (ACC).
If so, then the MWC should continue to scale the ladder of national respect in 2009.
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Speaking of the BCS: Among the criteria for a MWC program to make a BCS bowl is that the conference champ is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS standings or that the champ is ranked in the top 16 and ranked higher than the champ of a conference with an automatic berth. In any event, no more than one team from a non-BCS conference can earn a BCS berth in a given year.
Frogs Leap to Top: TCU garnered 15 of 24 first-place votes among media members in being selected as the preseason favorite to win the MWC title. BYU, picked to come in second, had six of the nine remaining first-place votes with defending conference champ Utah the other three. The Utes were picked third in the nine-team conference followed by Air Force, UNLV, Colorado State, New Mexico and San Diego State with Wyoming pulling up the rear.
“It’s nice to be picked first,” said TCU coach Gary Patterson. “The bottom line is we have to go out and do the job. Where you’re picked doesn’t matter. We were picked sixth in 2005 and won the conference.”
CSU coach Steve Fairchild made his thoughts clear when it comes to preseason polls. “I could care less,” he said of a sixth place selection following a 7-6 season that concluded with a bowl victory in his first year as Rams coach. “We were picked eighth or ninth (actually eighth) last season….and who knows? I took this job with the long-term in mind and at some point getting Colorado State football back where it belongs.”
What Timing: The headline sports news in Vegas so far this week concerns the departure of UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick, who accepted the same job at Marshall (his alma mater) for a reported $50,000 less. Hamrick hired Rebels coach Mike Sanford, so it’s only natural that speculation concerning Sanford’s job security is already underway.
“As a football coach, you become involved and spend energy on what you can control,” said Sanford. “I don’t see this circumstance having anything to do about adding any pressure. My job is to win football games and all the focus is on what we can do in 2009.”
Sanford is 11-36 in four seasons at UNLV, though the program showed some life last season by winning five games, including an OT victory at Arizona State.
(Photos courtesy the MWC)
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