Pac-10 Rumblings of Expansion
“It all had been going so well for the Mountain West.
It had started with the recently concluded football season. Check that, it had started with the football season that concluded in January 2009, when Utah busted the Bowl Championship Series for the second time in four years, whipping Alabama, 31-17. Not Alabama-Huntsville or Alabama A&M. Alabama Alabama. Bear Bryant’s Alabama. The one that beat the dog snot out of Texas in this year’s national championship game.
So what if Texas Christian lost to Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl? No harm, no foul. Leading up to the game, ESPN said the Mountain West was halfway home to receiving an automatic BCS bid. ESPN said that. Not The Mtn. or Versus or the Navy Football Network or Wayne and Garth’s public access channel or one of the other obscure networks that Mountain West games are available on, provided the log-rolling contest leading up to them doesn’t go into overtime. ESPN. A sports channel that everybody gets.
Then basketball season heated up. For one shining moment, the Mountain West had three teams ranked among the Top 25. Or one more than the vaunted Atlantic Coast Conference had.
That was last week, before the Rebels were getting out-hustled to virtually every loose ball. Before they realized how much they missed Derrick Jasper on the boards and on defense.
Before, more important to a nationwide audience, the Pacific-10 Conference had to open its big mouth.”