Going through my notes and recorder about Thursday’s announcement of Utah leaving for the Pac-10:
–MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson said there are no hard feelings toward Utah leaving.
–If the MWC were to expand again, would the school have to have played in a BCS bowl? Not necessarily, Thompson said. But let’s face it, that wouldn’t hurt. Hawaii is the only other non-MWC, non-automatic qualifying BCS school to play in a BCS bowl. Hawaii isn’t coming to the MWC.
–Thompson: “We’ll be just fine with nine.” Maybe the conference office should have T-shirts made up with that statement and distribute them to its members.
–Thompson thinks there will be a day where an 11-1 MWC team plays in a BCS bowl. Not in this current system there won’t. That will come only as an automatic qualifying conference.
–Eight to 10 schools showed interest in joining the MWC. Thompson wouldn’t say who they were.
–The next focus for the MWC is performing well in the final two years of this current BCS evaluation cycle. Whatever Boise State does this year in the WAC will count toward the MWC’s figures in that cycle.
–Mountain time zone only about 7 percent of the U.S. households. That includes part of the Dallas-Fort Worth market. That’s always going to be a challenge for the MWC.
–Boise State president will participate fully in conference calls now, and will become voting member of the MWC Board July 2011.
–MWC will look into future considerations and ties with the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise. But the league currently has ties for five bowls.
It’s been fun and interesting following all this conference expansion stuff, but I don’t know about you, but I’m glad its done and over with. See Friday’s Wyoming Tribune Eagle and Laramie Daily Boomerang for more. Also go online Friday morning at www.wyomingnews.com and laramieboomerang.com.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
WyoSports senior columnist/writer Bob Hammond has a nice historical look at some of the more memorable Wyoming-Utah games over the years. See that in Friday’s Wyoming Tribune Eagle and Laramie Daily Boomerang.
As for me, here are a couple I remember:
–2006 UW football where the Cowboys jumped out to a 31-0 lead and won 31-16.
–1999UW football at Utah where Jared Jarnigan nearly took the head off of Utah QB Darnel Arceneaux and UW won 43-29.
–UW men’s basketball in 2002 where it won the MWC Championship at home over Utah in front of the largest crowd of just over 16,000 to ever see a UW basketball game.
How about for you?
One of the negatives not being discussed is the impact on MWC baseball from the departure of Utah. The league now has just six schools playing baseball. While CSU is not going to add baseball, hopefully Boise State and Wyoming will add programs. It would be disappointing to see the Mountain West Conference drop baseball due to too little participation from member schools. When Wyoming did have baseball in the 80s into the early 90s it was well supported and under the coaching of Bill Kinnenberg, now at Utah, the program enjoyed some success.
This link provides some additional information on the former UW hardball coach who has completed six seasons in Salt Lake and will be taking the Utes to the competitive Pacific Ten (Twelve ?) Conference starting with the ’12 college baseball season.
http://utahutes.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/kinneberg_bill00.html
This link from the Las Vegas Sun with observations from Tony Gwynn brings forth the concern over the future of MWC baseball.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/26/san-diego-state-coach-tony-gwynn/
Hi Larry,
I can’t speak for Boise State, but I can tell you Wyoming has no intention of adding baseball — or any other sports right now.
I know baseball was well supported at UW, but it also was one of the most expensive sports it had in terms of travel, etc. Now with Title IX gender equity rules and laws, it UW were to add a men’s sport it would have to add a women’s sport as well. And simply put, there isn’t the money to do it. Wyoming has enough problems supporting the programs it has with its current budget issues.
I hope MWC baseball will survive. You need at a minimum six schools to have a conference so at least it is safe there.
Thanks for the comments and links Larry. Have a great day.
RG