Pac-10 and Boise State: A Marriage Made in Pigskin Heaven

For the past several years, there have been two conferences that have been dominated by just one team each. Going into each and every season, you pretty much knew who the front-runner was. It was them and then there was everybody else.

For one of these conferences, it's time to bring in another team to present more of a challenge. It's time to bring in a team that's gained a lot of national attention, even from a small conference out West.

The Pac-10 has been dominated by the University of Southern California, and although that trend could be changing, especially after the departure of head coach Pete Carroll, USC still remains the media darling in Southern California.

If the conference wants more respect on the national scene, it's time to bring in another team or two that will bring more competition and possibly more recruits.

The Pac-10 needs to look no further than a team that's dominated their own conference and, by now, is probably bored with the same old song and dance every year.

That team is Boise State.

The Broncos have won seven WAC titles in the eight years they've been in the conference. They became a household name after knocking off Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl in a game tapped as one of the best games in college bowl history.

But there's been one thing that the bigger conferences, even the Pac-10, have held against the Broncos.

It's that they play in the very weak Western Athletic Conference.

Ending the 2009 season with a perfect record (14-0), the closest finishers to Boise State were Nevada, Fresno State, and Idaho, who all finished with an 8-5 record.

There's no question that Boise State would jump at the chance to go to the Pac-10 or even the Mountain West Conference if they expanded, but there is a very big question about whether either conference would bring Boise State over.

The Pac-10 has teams outside of USC, like UCLA, Oregon, Cal, and Arizona, each with a reputation of being a big-time program in one sport or another.

Could you really see Boise State in the same conversation?

Not while they're a member of the WAC.

So what incentive does the Pac-10 have for bringing on Boise State?

For one, the argument against USC over the past few years was their strength of schedule inside the conference.

When teams like Washington State are finishing at 1-11, Arizona State not far behind at 4-8, and Washington at 5-7, most will tell you those are games not easily lost.

That's not to say that the conference isn't getting stronger because USC for the first time in recent memory didn't finish atop the Pac-10 Conference.

In fact, they weren't even in the top three. That distinction belonged to Oregon (10-3), Arizona (8-5), and Oregon State (8-5), though most fans from the bigger BCS conferences would scoff at those finishing records and tell you they couldn't compete in the SEC.

So, to rectify that situation, the Pac-10 needs Boise State, and Boise State needs the Pac-10.

Both have a lot to gain by taking the college football vows and promising their allegiance to each other forever, or until the Pac-10 decides they're too big and splits off into two smaller conferences.

As it stands now, a Pac-10 team needs to finish undefeated even to sniff the national championship game, while a team from the SEC, Big Ten, or Big XII can finish with one or two losses and still have a shot.

While it's true that a one-loss season will get USC, Cal, Oregon, Stanford, or the like a big payday by being in a BCS bowl, those same schools would rather have a better shot at bringing home the national championship trophy.

To do that, the Pac-10 needs to be expanded to a 12-team conference, split into two smaller divisions (North and South), and have a conference championship game put into place.

Doing that will not only give this conference a better shot at the top BCS game of the year, but it will also bring in more revenue as well as give them a better shot at the top high school and junior college recruits in the nation.

The call needs to go out to Boise State and the invitation to join the conference extended.

They can deny it all they want, but in the back of their minds they both know they need each other.