Succesful Mountain West faces challenges

The winner of this past season's Bowl Challenge Cup, presented to the conference with the best bowl winning percentage, was the Mountain West. They posted an impressive 4-1 record in bowl games. During the '07 season, six Mountain West schools combined to total eight wins against BCS conference opponents. Much of the success came on the defensive side of the ball. The conference boasted the top 5 non-BCS conference finishers in total defense. The success, however, is threatened. Currently the conference is without a tv contract with any major network and can be mainly seen on the mtn., their very own network that debuted in '06 but remains harder to find than the Big Ten Network. Furthermore, the conference's bowl tie-ins provide limited exposure and opportunity for growth. It will be a challenge for the conference to maintain its on-the-field dominance over its peer conferences considering their exposure disadvantages.

In 2006 the Mountain West spun an ESPN tv deal in favor of beginning their own network, the MountainWest Sports Network. The conference teamed with CSTV and Comcast for the network, often called the mtn. (pronounced "the mountain"). The conference ditched ESPN due to financial terms and the network's desire for the conference to play many weeknight football games and basketball games tipping off late at night. Currently the mtn. is only available through many western states cable providers. Neither DirecTV or the Dish Network carry the station (DirecTV will begin carring it for the '08 football season). Other football games air on CSTV or Versus. Some of the conference premier games this past fall aired Thursday night on Versus, a channel many sports fans aren't accustomed to flipping to. The BYU vs. TCU was a premier game, but aired on Versus Thursday night opposite West Virginia vs. Louisville on ESPN and was largely ignored. Meanwhile, some of the Mountain West's peer conferences are experience exposure like never before. The Mid American Conference was shown on tv almost nightly through the early parts of the week. The WAC conference's de facto title game earned huge ratings for a Friday night game. The conference recently moved the game between Boise State and Fresno State, the conference's' preseason favorites, to the last regular season weekend in hopes for another big ratings hit. The Mountain West earned a lot of its reputation by playing Thursday nights on ESPN. The conference needs a similar kick or it may be tracked down by the WAC and C-USA.

The four current Mountain West bowl tie-ins read like the outfield wall of a minor league baseball game: Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl, Bell Helicopter armed Forces Bowl, San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, and the New Mexico Bowl. TCU played in the Texas Bowl, filling a Big 12 tie-in. Along with these bowl's low status comes low payouts. The conference champion plays in the Las Vegas Bowl with a payout of $1 million. The three other bowls all payout under a million. There are only 10 other bowls that have payouts lower than $1 million. The bowls are played on unattractive dates. The Poinsettia Bowl is the first bowl played and the Las Vegas Bowls is played just days later, before much of the world is ready for bowls. The Las Vegas Bowls pits the Mountain West Champion against the fourth best Pac 10 team (fifth best should that conference get two BCS bids). The conference needs its champion to be playing someone better than a middle of the road Pac 10 school. The number two Mountain West team played the 6th place Pac 10 team in this past years Armed Forces Bowl, Air Force losing to California. However, for the 2008 season that bowl will be against a Conference-USA opponent. The remaining bowls are against non-BCS schools. These bowls allow little opportunity for the conference schools to gain national exposure and prove themselves on the gridiron.

Through all the difficulties, the conference's on-field performance has been great. The main reason for this is due to tremendous coaching. BYU's Bronco Mendenhall is quickly showing to be one of the nation's best coaches. TCU's Gary Patterson has been sought after by other major programs. Air Force's Troy Calhoun may have had the best season out of any first year coach. However, if the conference continues to lag in exposure, their coaches may begin to flow to other conferences. Utah was able to hire Urban Meyer from Bowling Green, a MAC school. That type of move could begin to look more lateral. It is important for the conference to improve its media and bowl situation before their coaches start to see greener pastures in other conferences. Otherwise it will be a hard trek back up the mountain to reestablish themselves as the elite non-BCS conference.