The best part of any commissioner’s job should be handing off championship trophies. Everyone is celebrating, and for one of the few times during a commissioner’s work day no one is complaining.
Except if the commissioner is Craig Thompson.
He was introduced Saturday at LaVell Edwards Stadium to present the hardware to some very happy BYU players, and the crowd booed his introduction.
Thompson figures it was lingering dissatisfaction over the distribution of The Mtn. He said on Tuesday’s conference call he would have no comment on the crowd reaction, but it was “part and parcel with the position. I certainly wasn’t the sole decision- maker to enter into the television contract.”
In all likelihood, the football season will end before The Mtn. is picked up by satellite or the primary cable providers in San Diego, Las Vegas and Fort Worth, Texas.
The production itself is improving weekly, with almost nightly basketball games in addition to the Saturday football package.
At least this week a significant chunk of the NFL viewership outside Denver will see what disenfranchised MWC fans went through this season. The Broncos-Chiefs game will be aired on NFL Network, which like The Mtn., is a digital upgrade for most cable subscribers.
“There’s a couple hundred thousand people in Colorado who won’t get to watch the game because (NFL Network) is not carried that broadly in Colorado,” Thompson said. “We’re negotiating The Mtn. The NFL Network, which probably has more interest than The Mtn., has the same distribution issues. They’ve been talking, there’s been lawsuits and there’s been countersuits. We haven’t gotten to that point, but it’s all the same situation.”
The longest season
Unless the NCAA moves to start the football season on the last weekend of August, Thompson doesn’t see any way around finishing the season before the first weekend in December.
“I don’t think it will be possible,” Thompson said, noting one institution stated it would rather play the first weekend in December than during the Thanksgiving weekend.
Unlike the Big Ten, which has no byes, there is no uniformity in the MWC. Colorado State had two byes this season, while Wyoming had none. Further complicating the MWC schedule is Air Force playing three dates out of conference (Army, Navy and Notre Dame) after September.
Yet another offshoot of the late finish is the bowl scenario with all four MWC bowl tie-ins falling before Christmas.
That doesn’t give teams much time for the athletes to rest and catch up on academics before coming back for practice. Coaches are really squeezed between starting recruiting and organizing practice. And it doesn’t give fans much time to make travel arrangements.
The flip side is the five teams that will sit home will wish they had those problems.
Rivalry weekend
BYU’s cruise control drive to the title with a week to spare has left the last two weekends devoid of an ounce of drama. Even when Utah rampaged two years ago, at least there was the backdrop of whether the Utes would crack the BCS bowl lineup.
While everyone else goes through the motions the last two weeks, everything is still at stake Saturday in Salt Lake City when Utah goes for its fifth straight win against BYU. Utah hasn’t won more than four in a row in the series since 1959-64. While the outcome has no impact on bowl destinations – BYU is set for Las Vegas and Utah is going to San Diego or Fort Worth – the trash talking started as soon as BYU beat New Mexico.
Utah defensive tackle Kelly Talavou told the Salt Lake Tribune: “Every year they talk their trash. And the same results happen, we end up beating them. So, we’ll just let them talk….We’ll do our talking on the field.”
Count on plenty of chatter across the line of scrimmage.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
