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Scroll down about 2/3rds of the way till you see the title Mountain West mailbag. I have also copied and pasted as well. Probaby should keep an eye on this as this is where any ESPN blogging about FAU will be.


Mountain West mailbag

July 22, 2008 8:30 PM


Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson

LAS VEGAS – I'm sitting in the Las Vegas airport ready to leave Mountain West media days, so I wanted to end with a few Mountain West specific questions from the mailbag. This isn't the end of my Mountain West coverage. I'll be heading to Utah to watch it open fall camp then traveling to BYU. I also have some stories that I haven't had a chance to put up that I might save for August.

With that said, I'm heading to Salt Lake City this evening for WAC media days, so fans from Hawaii to Boise State will get their fix over the next couple days.

Anonymous from Brooklyn, NY writes: Thanks for all of the non-BCS posts. I graduated from Utah and now live in NYC so I love being able to read MWC news. It's hard to find any college news here in general, but especially smaller western schools… Been seeing posts about Pac 10 expansion. Any truth to rumors that you're aware of? Or is it just fun to think about?

Graham Watson: I think it's just fun to think about, at least in the near future. There's no telling what might happen after 2014. I do think one of these schools – looks like BYU right now – has to have consistent double-digit wins and compete against BCS schools for any BCS conference to consider expansion. When I say consistent, I mean five or six straight years, not just two or three. But, if the Pac-10 were to expand, I think BYU, Boise State and even Utah would be in consideration.

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Mark from Salt Lake City writes: If BYU, Utah, Boise State, TCU, and few other successful non-BCS teams got together and created a new conference, is there a chance that they would be deemed a BCS conference? What teams would you put together to get the best chance at getting some recognition as a conference?

Graham Watson: This is a really good question. Obviously, there are a lot of things that go into making a new conference, not to mention a BCS conference. First, a new conference probably couldn't form until after the 2014 season when the Big Ten and Pac-10 contract with the Rose Bowl expires. That's when a playoff or some other form of postseason will be discussed – again – and who knows, the BCS might be an entirely different animal after that time. Also, what would be the criteria for picking schools? How many schools would make up the conference? There are 54 non-BCS and Independent schools around the country. How could you make sure you picked the right ones?

See, there's a lot of thought and planning and legal stuff that goes into this. But, for fun sake, if I made a 12-team BCS conference from non-BCS schools TODAY, it would consist of the following teams: BYU, Utah, Houston, TCU, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Central Michigan, Bowling Green, Fresno State, Boise State, Navy, and Troy.

I would move Notre Dame to the Big Ten and Army to the MAC.

Interesting to think about, but could you imagine the travel schedule if all of those schools were put into one conference?

It would be brutal not only on the players, but also on the finances of member institutions.

Imagine FAU and East Carolina having to make road trips to two of the following four schools every year: BYU, Utah, Fresno State, and Boise State.

Basically it would be a new CUSA with schools from every part of the country.

GO OWLS!!!

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The Sun Belt hates Middle Tennessee

July 29, 2008 11:23 AM

Posted by ESPN.com's Graham Watson

Yeah, that's right, Middle Tennessee, a team that has won more than five games just once in the last six seasons. This choice has little to do with dominance on the field and more to do with the fact that several teams in the Sun Belt think of Middle Tennessee as its rival.

Troy and North Texas despise Middle Tennessee, and now that Western Kentucky, another hated rival, is joining the Sun Belt in football, Middle Tennessee faces its own Unholy Trinity.

It's almost unfair to hate a team that has beaten itself up. The Blue Raiders struggle each year because of a brutal nonconference schedule and scholarship limitations.

Middle Tennessee will play with 74 scholarship players (85 is normal) because of its failure to meet the NCAA's 925 APR minimum. It will face Maryland, Kentucky, Louisville and Mississippi State in its nonconference slate, which is a cakewalk compared to facing Oklahoma and LSU like it has in the past two seasons.

Then it gets to face a conference that frankly doesn't like it. There's something so wrong with that.

Other candidates for most hated are Troy for its ESPN heroics over Missouri in 2004 that made it an overnight sensation and left the rest of the Sun Belt out in the cold. I was covering Mizzou at the time and called the upset. DeMarcus Ware was a man among boys. The Trojans have been the most consistent Sun Belt team ever since.

And Florida Atlantic for making waves as one of the conference's youngest members. No one likes to be upstaged by a newbie.

;D ;D ;D ;D