BCS: Mountain West to Be the Next Big East

Fast-forward a few years and the BCS reality could read differently. Bye-bye, Big East. Thanks for playing. Please lobby for BCS status in four more years. The Mountain West is now you, and the Big East; well, you are now they. All the arguments that were in your favor no longer apply to you but rather to the Mountain West, who can and will now hide under our umbrella instead of you (and just like you did). Good luck to all of your arguments against an elite cartel that once argued for you, but now does not include you. We will hear your arguments against our known oligopoly and anti-trust, but we won't listen until you meet our standards and prove more deserving to replace an included conference in the same way that you have been ousted. It's a tough world, and though you couldn't compete on the field well enough, the money and television market (the only thing you have going for you) almost saved you from the exposure to the less viewed Wild West that we hated to have to replace you with. But according to the rules you agreed to-and that we have held them to-we had no choice. If only you would have kept up your end of the bargain.

That is what is coming. The Big East might as well secure their lawyers now. Or start playing better football. The Mountain West Conference (MWC) can attest to the fact that legalities won't straighten out a corrupt system, but playing good football will. At least that is how you first get heard. Oh, the MWC hasn't busted into the BCS backed conferences yet, but playing good football preceded any days in court, and it will prove them more worthy of inclusion when the next review is done (if done fairly). When the BCS has to uphold its own rules and re-evaluate in four years the conferences that are included, the MWC is on track to surpass at least one conference-that conference is the Big East.

In the first year of review, last year, you can even forget how the MWC went 6-1 against the Pac-10. College football knows the Pac-10 has a stable of teams to reckon with this year and is usually one of the top three conferences in the nation. It's the Big East that has fallen in public perception. The results were a little behind, but the effects of replacements for the heavyweight teams that left the Big East a few years ago, has caught up with them. For a couple years it appeared that they were picking up the slack with different programs, but rankings of those teams proved to be inflated.

Let's compare how the two conferences (the Big East and the MWC) stack up against each other in the final results of seasons since the restructuring of the Big East. Let's compare where the two conferences stand with rankings and perception going into the coming season. Yeah, the role reversal is taking its course.

The MWC begins the season with three teams in the top 25. The Big East had none. The MWC has continued where they left off last year. Utah beat Alabama in the Sugar bowl, and then BYU beat Oklahoma in their first game of the new season. The Big East fell off the radar last year, the first year toward the BCS review of its member teams. Pittsburgh was the only team of note to begin this season. And so far this year they haven't been stealing any of the headlines back from the MWC. The MWC might not break up the BCS, but they may very well break off the Big East. Then once they are the haves, who will fight for the have-nots?