Mountain West Conference football coaches will hit the recruiting trail this weekend, armed with some ammunition that wasn’t on radar a month ago: bowls and television.
When recruits ask about bowl games, coaches can say four (and possibly five) teams in the nine-school MWC are going to the postseason this year.
It wasn’t long ago MWC commissioner Craig Thompson fretted about not being able to fill three bowl spots. Colorado State coach Sonny Lubick picked up on those concerns.
“I was standing there four weeks ago thinking we might not be able to fill our bowl slots the way everyone was knocking each other off,” Lubick said. “Getting five teams in is huge. That’s a great job by our conference and by the commissioner.”
San Francisco’s Emerald Bowl, which is taking Utah, goes by the wayside after this season, being replaced by the Fort Worth Bowl. The Houston Bowl’s invitation to MWC champion Texas Christian isn’t something to be counted on annually.
However, the expansion to a fifth Bowl Championship Series game will open up the possibility if an MWC team finishes in the top 12 of the BCS rankings. TCU moved up a notch to No. 13 this week and could move up again if No. 12 UCLA falls to top-ranked USC on Dec. 3.
Then there is TV. In the heat of the season, MWC coaches didn’t want to think how they would explain the CSTV contract to recruits and their parents when they probably didn’t understand it themselves.
Although it didn’t get much national play, the CBS purchase of CSTV changes everything in the recruiting pitch.
As New Mexico coach Rocky Long said recently on a conference call, his staff has tried a few CSTV pitches to recruits but, “It’s much easier to say CBS.”
Details have yet to be worked out on how CBS or partner networks will carry the handful of MWC games each season guaranteed for large national exposure. The only downside to all of Thompson’s recent wheeling and dealing is that he’s the most marketable commissioner in the country if a vacancy occurs in a BCS conference.
Depth at QB big deal
Although it hardly pertains to only the MWC, if there’s one tenet coaches learned this year it’s to have a backup quarterback as good or better than the starter.
TCU replaced injured senior Tye Gunn early in the season with untested fourth-year junior Jeff Ballard and didn’t miss a step. Likewise, Utah’s Brett Ratliff stepped up in the finale for league total-offense leader Brian Johnson and pulled out the upset of the year over Brigham Young to get the Utes in a bowl.
New Mexico didn’t have any such luck after starter Kole McKamey went out with a back injury. Nevada-Las Vegas had too many holes to be a contender, but the Rebels could have won more games had Shane Steichen been available all year.
Looking ahead, the only MWC teams losing a starting senior quarterback after this season are CSU (Justin Holland) and Wyoming (Corey Bramlet).
Footnotes
San Diego State coach Tom Craft may have saved his job with the Aztecs’ strong finish. … If BYU plays California in the Dec. 22 Las Vegas Bowl, Cougars athletic director Tom Holmoe will have a reunion with the school that fired him as its football coach a few years ago.
