Mountain West, WAC had to do it

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Don't blame the Mountain West and the WAC for joining the BCS.

They fought a valiant battle, but in the end, it was all about survival. Several times over the years, there has been a Boise State or a Utah that has threatened to blow up the BCS once and for all. But it never happened. They couldn't beat it, so they had to join it.

The worst part about the whole thing is everytime a non-BCS team ended up faltering in its quest to screw up the system, the powers that be would say, "See? The system works."

Well, it still doesn't work. Just because it's better than the old corrupt system does not mean that it is a good system.

It is still unbelievable that so many conferences and Notre Dame would be so against the only truly proper way of determining a champion - a playoff. It's something that should happen in college football for two reasons. First, the fans want it.

But secondly, and seemingly more important to conference officials, it would make them more money. Think of the ratings and advertising dollars a playoff would bring in. Think of the borderline fans that would tune it. They do it for college basketball. Why wouldn't they do it for football? Face it, as Americans, we love drama and there's no better place to get great sports stories than in a tournament. Underdogs and upsets are what make sports great. Remember what George Mason's run in the NCAA basketball tournament in 2006 did for college basketball? Even to a lesser degree, having Bemidji State (ranked 16 out of 16 teams in the NCAA hockey tournament) in the frozen four peaked more interest in the event than normal.

But the BCS is the system we have and, well, it's what we're going to have to accept as being around for a long time with it's two biggest opponents joining its ranks.

But what were the MWC and WAC supposed to do? Let their conferences wither and die while the larger conferences bathe in their riches? No. They needed to survive and this was the only way they could. It doesn't make them hypocrites.

Let's just hope that now they're in, they can influence some changes from the inside.