The BYTCUTAH Conference

       I began to write an article on TCU dominating the Mountain West Conference and that maybe they belong in a different Conference. However as I started researching I realized that TCU doesn't dominate all the teams in the Conference, instead they are one of three teams that dominate the Conference. The three teams are BYU, TCU and Utah, and the three of them completely beat up the rest of the Conference.

       This year, the "Big 3" are ranked in the Top 25, BYU's been ranked in the Top 10, and TCU is currently lined up to be a BCS team. Last year Utah finished the year beating Alabama in a BCS game and finished ranked #2 in the country. Since 2005, the year that TCU joined the Mountain West Conference, the "Big 3" have only 9 losses out of 90 games against the rest of their conference. From 2005 through 2008, the "Big 3" has won 90% of the games they've played against the other teams in the rest of their conference. Most of those nine losses came from Utah's rebounding years in 2005 and 2006 after Urban Myer left the program. Just an interesting note is that New Mexico, San Diego State & Wyoming won two games each over the "Big 3". Of the "Big 3", BYU has done the best losing only 1 game over the span.

       Not only are they creaming the teams when they play but they are also more reliable at placing NFL players. Over the entire existence of the programs, the "Big 3" have an avg. of 125 players per team that have gone to the NFL, whereas the rest of the teams in the conference only average 78 players per team to the NFL. If you exclude Colorado State and San Diego State, then the average drops dramatically to 51 players per team. That's less than half of the players the "Big 3". In addition, the "Big 3" have an average of 9 players per team currently in the NFL, the rest of the Conference has only 4 per team and once again, if you take out Colorado State and San Diego State it drops down to 2 players per team. The "Big 3" have an average of 1.3 players per team that made it to the NFL Hall of Fame and the rest of the Conference had 1 TOTAL!

       This kind of dominance is ridiculous. Instead of taking the any of the "Big 3" teams out of the conference they ought to purge the conference of the losers and add some winners like Boise State. I initially thought it'd be a good idea to have TCU join the Big 12 and have Colorado join the Mountain West as it seemed logically geographically, however, now I think the Mountain West has 3 good teams so they should just add 2 more teams that could strengthen the conference. As it turns out, the Mountain West Conference has sent an invitation to Boise State to join the conference, but Boise State can't leave the Western Athletic Conference until 2011 otherwise they'll have to pay a large penalty fee. Boise State has already expressed interest in joining with the Mountain West because they feel the level of playing competition would be higher and more suitable for the program. As it turns out, in 2011, the BCS reevaluates all of the Conferences to determine automatic bids to the BCS games. The addition of Boise State would definitely help the Mountain West Conference's chances of getting the automatic bid that the Mountain West has longed for (and even sued for).

       So it looks like Boise State may be sure thing, but to really lock up their chances to look like a power conference, they probably need at least one more program to help the conference compete. Staying in the geographical location, Hawaii may be a good option since in recent years Hawaii has also had close BCS hopes. Adding quality teams though, may not be enough. The Mountain West Conference may need to purge the bottom feeders of the Conference. The problem is in trying to determine which teams are the bottom feeders. In the past Colorado State and San Diego State have had very good quality programs and have even competed on a nationally. It's just in recent years, the programs have suffered. New Mexico is improving, Wyoming has played tough some years, UNLV always stinks and although no one likes to play Air Force cuz the players are so tough, they still don't win a lot of games in the conference.

       Look at Vanderbilt in the SEC. Vandy just doesn't belong. The program never has dominated the conference and I doubt they've ever even won the Southeastern Conference. The Mountain West Conference is like that except all of the teams are like Vanderbilt except for the "Big 3", BYU, TCU and Utah. The "Big 3" completely dominate the conference, which is why they ought to just call it the BYTCUtah Conference.