Conference Realignment: Would a MWC and Conference USA Merger Deserve a BCS Bid?

Two conferences that have been rarely mentioned during this whole big conference realignment discussion are college football’s two top Non-Automatic Qualifying conferences: the Mountain West and Conference USA.

Yes, the ripple effect is being felt far and wide, and after this weekend’s Big East breakout, it sounds as if every team and conference is now trying to be as proactive as possible.

That has left the powers-that-be who run the two conferences to consider a football-only consolidation for the future.

In recent years, the Mountain West has been crying for attention and hoping to receive a BCS bid—especially after winning three of the four BCS bowl games they participated in—but eventually the conference’s top tier teams grew impatient, and they opted to head for new homes.

Utah and BYU bolted this summer, with the Utes heading to the new Pac-12 and the Cougars heading for life as an independent.

Also during the summer, TCU, the Mountain West’s bell cow football team, decided to accept an invitation to the Big East—a move that looks to be on shaky ground, given all that’s going on right now.

Losing the three biggest names in the conference is a tough blow, but bringing in Boise State and some WAC reinforcements like Hawaii, Fresno State and Nevada will help ease the pain.

That will leave the Mountain West with 10 teams, starting next season, while Conference USA will still have 12 teams.

Through all of this shifting, Conference USA has managed to hold on to its big names, like Houston, Central Florida and Southern Miss.

Now the talk is that the two conferences could join together in a nontraditional sense—as almost two separate divisions, and have the two winners play in a conference championship game.

The hope is that the championship game winner will receive an automatic BCS bowl bid, but that could be asking a lot.

Since we still look to be at the beginning stages of this monumental movement, it’s hard to forecast exactly what type of conference structure and bowl format will exist when all of this is said and done.

Something tells me, though, that even if we do still have a BCS, the decision-makers probably won’t be too eager to hand an automatic bid to a conference comprised of Boise State, Houston, and some also-rans.

The idea, in theory, is a good one, but if we do end up going to the four-superconference formula, you have to wonder if most people will simply forget about the MWC-USA (working title, of course).

Are you going to want to hand a BCS bowl bid to the second- or third-best team out of a superconference, or the top team out of a group of forgotten-abouts?

I commend the Mountain West and Conference-USA for being proactive instead of reactive in these current times, but you do have to wonder if their concepts are based on reality.

It may take something like combining forces just to survive the expansion tidal wave that is about to hit the shores of college football, but it also might be a bit foolish to choose these tumultuous times to start looking for a handout from the BCS.

If the Mountain West can somehow convince TCU to return, then maybe I could see the winner of the championship game getting some BCS love—but if that doesn’t happen, I just can’t see the BCS brass deeming that pool of teams worthy of an automatic bid.

Not only will they have four potential superconferences in their way, they'll probably also have to fight the mutated zombie body of the Big East and Big 12 for some BCS attention.

Both conferences are aware that they're currently flirting with irrelevancy if they don't do something soon—but the sad fact of the matter is that they just may never be able to do enough to gain the trust of the BCS.