The Mountain West welcomes two new members

With news that BYU was headed indy in football and taking the rest of their sports to the WAC the Mountain West Conference has signed, sealed and delivered two new insitutions. The University of Californa, Fresno State the University of Nevada, Reno will both join the Mountain West in as soon as 2011.

This will ensure that the MWC stays at least a 10 team conference and could signal a death blow to the WAC the former home of both schools. Will these schools help the Mountain West automatic qualifying as a BCS conference? Not right away but the potential is there. Fresno State has 22 wins over the past three years and Nevada has 21. The great thing is that the Mountain West will have at least 10 teams and a solid foundation.

Are these new additions perfect? No but they are a great fit geographically and will be great travel partners for UNLV and San Diego State.

What are they missing? Fresno needs to starting winning some bowl games once they join :P And their bulldog logo bugs me. Nevada needs to starts packing their stadium, their attendance is terrible at home and hardly any fans support the team on the road. Hopefully this will all change with the stiffer competition.

So what does this mean for BYU? Do continue their way out and join the scraps of the WAC or perhaps the WCC? Or do they come back and play nice in the Mountain West.

Thompson was just in Philadelphia meeting with Comcast and CBS College discussing the tv deal. Will these new markets mean a boost to the viewership of the Mtn? I would stoked by any improvement in the current deal.

Right now I'm view MWC Commisioner as a bad ass.


Craig Thompson does his best impersonation of Jules from Pulp Fiction

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.

WAC fans staying home again

The WAC continues to disappoint this bowl season. The day before the Hawaii Bowl between SMU and Nevada, it turns out that the Wolfpack are only expected to sell "100ish" tickets to the pineapple bowl. The Wolfpack have a reputation of being a school that travels poorly. East Carolina, UAB and Tulane have all brought better numbers despite traveling further.

In the 2005 Hawaii Bowl Nevada set an all time low by selling less than 100 tickets. Sure Hawaii is a long way to travel but I'm sure some husbands could have convinced their wives that they need to travel to Hawaii for Christmas. "80 degrees and warm sandy beaches.. ok honey. I guess we can go. "

The poor following for the Wolfpack is probably another reason why the New Mexico Bowl brought Fresno State back for a repeat. "Nevada... really? Ugh... Welcome back Bulldogs!"

Nevada's opponent SMU hasn't been to bowl game in 25 years and are expecting to sell around 500 tickets. Not great but at least they got a booster to fork over $35,000 to fly in their live mascots - 3 year old mustangs.

The ideal situation for the Hawaii Bowl is to have the hometown Warriors play but the Warriors didn't qualify this year. One thought might be moving the bowl back to a New Years Eve date and giving fans more time to purchase airfare and book hotels. The short turnaround can make it hard to get a flight without breaking the bank.