An Expansion Plot That Actually Makes Sense: Boise State To The Mountain West

Before the Big Ten threw the college football punditry into a state of utter higgledy-piggledy by announcing it might expand in 12 to 18 months, and then whispering that it might expand to 16 immediately, there was a conference realignment scenario that actually made sense and promised to improve the state of college football: moving Boise State into the Mountain West.

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↵Boise’s clearly outgrown the WAC, where they rarely deal with a game within two touchdowns, let alone a loss. Moving them to the Mountain West gives them some profile after their annual defeat/crushing of a Pac-10 team, reduces the possibility that the BCS will have to deal with multiple undefeated mid-majors, and prevents said BCS from ever staging another Kiddie Table Bowl, unless someone in Conference USA gets seriously upstart. Also, college football will have some indication whether Boise is seriously for real and or when it’s just clobbering WAC goofballs. It’s an idea that needs to happen.

↵Apparently, if that’s going to happen, it’s going to happen like now:

↵↵The Mountain West Conference presidents meet next month, and there’s at least a decent chance that they will formally invite BSU — if not immediately after the gathering, then before July 1.

↵Here’s why: if the MWC wants Boise State’s performance in the 2008-10 seasons to be included in the formula that determines whether the MWC receives an automatic BCS bid for the next cycle of games — and it sure as heck does — then the Broncos must be a member of the MWC in 2011.

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↵I’d suggest that the MWC take a hard look at adding Fresno State, too, bringing them to an even ten and beefing their football presence up to the point where it’s almost impossible to justify a Big East autobid without a corresponding Mountain West one. If they want to get all cackling and evil about things, they could ask Wyoming and possibly Colorado State to hike back to the WAC. That would bring their conference strength of schedule up even further without hurting the basketball side of things—the reason UNLV and San Diego State are safe.

↵The new conference would be guaranteed a BCS bid for the single year of its existence, at which point the Pac 10 and Big 12 will tear it limb from limb and keep the shiny bits to themselves. But 2011 will be cool.

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