Santoro: Mountain West is so cool, it made TWO conferences

Sports Fodder:

Who knew the Mountain West was so deep in football talent and desirable programs that it could basically be split in half to form two FBS conferences?

That, apparently, is exactly what is going to happen over the next few years as the Great American West Coast College Football War between the Mountain West and Pac-12 plays out through back-room deals and promises, late-night phone calls and text messages, lawyer threats and, of course, sweaty palms and desperation.

It seems the Mountain West's states (namely Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Colorado State) will secede from the union and join the Pac-12 by 2026. Those schools foolishly believe that the rest of college football will be fooled by the Pac-12 logo and hand them bags full of television money, automatic invites to the ever-expanding College Football Playoff as well as endless consolation prize bowl game affiliations. Or maybe they just didn't want to go to Hawaii, Albuquerque, San Jose or Laramie anymore.

The Mountain West, according to media reports, will counter the losses of all their high-profile programs by adding UTEP (already taken care of on Tuesday) and Texas State in order to guarantee it will have at least eight full-time members and remain a legal conference. Think the Oakland Coliseum replacing the Oakland A's with the Oakland Roots soccer team.

What this all means is that the Mountain West, as we know it at this moment, will be the backbone and lifeblood of two FBS conferences (Pac-12 and Mountain West) in the near future. Who knew they could form one legitimate conference, let alone two?

Yes, of course, the Mountain West and Pac-12 by 2026 will be a decrepit, fading, molding version of what each looked like just last year. But that same thing can be said about a lot of things in our society right now.

Nobody in his or her right college football mind would agree that trading Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Colorado State for UTEP and Texas State is a good deal for the Mountain West. The Mountain West in a few years will look like the Big Sky Conference with bowl games. It's simply an awful deal for the leftover Mountain West programs (UNLV, Nevada, San Jose State, Wyoming, New Mexico, Hawaii and Air Force) that will witness their stadiums half empty for much of the year during the conference season.

Other than UNLV, there's not a team on that conference schedule by 2026 that will entice Wolf Pack fans to come to the stadium. The new Mountain West in a couple years will look like a banged-up 2011 Toyota Camry with a new door from a Ford Focus, a rebuilt engine from a Chevrolet Volt and a new mirror and front grill off a Ford Fiesta. In other words, it will be the Junkyard Conference of college football.

The new Pac-12, which still needs to add another team or two before 2026 to get to at least eight members, is also fooling itself. The days of the Pac-12 being associated with the elite of college football are long gone. Think a former Indianapolis 500 race car being driven to Raley's to pick up a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs and a pint of ice cream.

The new Pac-12 will, no doubt, get ample television money to spread around to its new greedy members. The zillions of television and internet networks desperate for college football programming, after all, would pay 22 German Shepards, Collies and Great Danes to put on helmets and shoulder pads and stage a football game after 6 p.m. in the Pacific Time Zone. But adding Mountain West teams isn't going to revitalize the Pac-12 in the Top 25 rankings and get them a guaranteed spot in the College Football Playoff unless the playoff is expanded to two dozen teams.

This is all about saving jobs in the corporate offices of the Pac-12 and Mountain West. It has nothing to do with quality, meaningful college football.

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The Mountain West, according to media reports, promised its loyal and remaining schools roughly $25 million each to remain in the conference. Money, of course, buys a lot of loyalty. That money will come from the lofty exit fees paid by the seceding schools that showed zero loyalty to the Mountain West.

The Mountain West will now try to sell you on the fact that UTEP and Texas State are more than enough to make up for the loss of Boise State, San Diego State, Utah State, Fresno State and Colorado State. That, of course, is ridiculous and insults the college football IQ of the fans of its remaining schools. But, we promise you, it's coming.

The press release will start something like this: "The Mountain West is excited to announce the addition of UTEP and Texas State to the conference starting ?? … "

The collective groan you will hear will be coming from Nevada, UNLV, Hawaii, Wyoming, New Mexico, Air Force and San Jose State. The laughter you'll hear will come from Washington State, Oregon State and all the Mountain West traitors. Nobody in the state of Texas gets excited about games involving UTEP and Texas State. Why would anyone in Reno, San Jose, Laramie, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs be thrilled?

The Mountain West is just scrambling and desperate right now and trying its best to keep its corporate jobs at the conference headquarters in Colorado Springs. UTEP and Texas State, decent athletic programs that try hard but have always struggled to find their identity in the state of Texas, will serve the Mountain West well until, of course, they leave sometime in the future.

The good news for the few remaining Mountain West fans, is that their beloved schools will now have plenty of opportunities for interesting non-conference games.

Boise State and Nevada will always be a heated rivalry. Colorado State and Air Force will certainly want to play each other. Fresno State and San Jose State will want to meet. Wyoming will likely want to play Colorado State and Utah State. Nevada and Fresno State is always interesting.

So, yes, while Mountain West conference games in the future will lose some of their current luster, it's also likely non-conference games will be more interesting than ever.

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The Mountain West heading into October seems to have two teams firmly in the discussion for the Group of 5 spot in the College Football Playoff.

Those teams, of course, are Boise State and UNLV. Everybody else has basically already eliminated themselves from the playoff picture and are now fighting for a bowl invite or a championship in a conference that is currently scrambling to stay alive.

But Boise State and UNLV, so far, are what the College Football Playoff had in mind when it said it will take the best Group of 5 team for its postseason party.

Boise State has one loss, but it was a close game (37-34) and it came against Oregon, a team from the high and mighty Big Ten. The Broncos also just obliterated Washington State (45-24) and will play Oregon State in late November, a game that even fans east of Denver might notice.

UNLV is 4-0 and just whipped Fresno State, 59-14. The Rebels also won at Kansas, 23-20, and Houston, 27-7, this year. Their College Football Playoff dreams might end sometime in the next four games with games at home against Syracuse and Boise State and on the road at Utah State and Oregon State. But if UNLV is sitting at 8-0 in the first week of November, well, anything is possible. The last four games on UNLV's schedule (Hawaii, San Diego State, San Jose State and Nevada) are all winnable for the confident Rebels.

Make no mistake, it would benefit the Mountain West and whichever form it takes in the future to have UNLV be the team that gets to the College Football Playoff this year and not Boise State. Boise, which has always been on the lookout to leave the Mountain West since it joined the conference in 2011, is likely no longer on the Mountain West's Christmas card list.

The Mountain West will certainly throw a party if Boise gets into the postseason and hands the conference it is leaving a share of the playoff money. But UNLV getting there will have a longer impact.

Boise State and UNLV will likely play each other twice this year, in the regular season on Oct. 25 and in the Mountain West championship game on Dec. 6. The winner on Oct. 25 will host the title game. A lot of things, of course, can change that scenario over the next two months.

But the bottom line is if either UNLV or Boise State runs the table from here on out, they deserve to be in the playoff. The Pack plays them both (Boise State on Nov. 9 and UNLV on Nov. 30), both on the road. So, yes, Pack wins in either or certainly both those games will help cripple their own conference financially.

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It would be stunning if Detroit beats Houston or Kansas City beats Baltimore in the wild-card round of this week's American League baseball playoffs. Houston, which only has to beat Detroit and Cleveland, appears to have a clear path to the American League Championship series.

The National League, like it’s been all season, has nothing but intriguing matchups starting this week. The New York Mets-Milwaukee Brewers series winner will play the Philadelphia Phillies while the Atlanta Braves-San Diego Padres survivor gets to play the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Phillies seemed to have peaked a month or so ago and the Dodgers’ pitching is running on fumes right now, like it always seems to be in the postseason. So, any of the six National League playoff teams can get to the World Series.

Baseball, though, needs an intriguing World Series matchup after that unwatchable Texas Rangers-Arizona Diamondbacks slop we had to endure last October. It's better for the sport if teams like Detroit, Kansas City and Milwaukee quickly step away from this postseason.  

We have nothing against those teams, which all overachieved this season and gave their fans a memorable spring and summer. But the fall is when baseball makes its money. And nobody outside those three overachieving cities really wants to see Detroit, Kansas City or Milwaukee in the World Series. Those teams don't help sell the sport nationwide and get the country to take a 15-minute break from college football and the NFL. A Milwaukee-Detroit or Milwaukee-Kansas City matchup might put the World Series on tape delay, like the old NBA Finals.

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The Nevada Wolf Pack football team has an interesting matchup this Saturday at San Jose State. Yes, of course, a Nevada-San Jose State meeting doesn't usually offer anything in the way of intrigue and importance, but this year is different. And, by the way, you better get used to getting excited to see a San Jose State-Nevada game. After UNLV, San Jose State might be the most interesting conference game on the Pack schedule in a few years.

San Jose State just might be the most surprising team in the Mountain West this season. After losing head coach Brent Brennan to Arizona after last year, it appeared the Spartans were due for yet another painful rebuild. But new coach Ken Niumatalolo, who did a commendable job as Navy's head coach from 2007-22, has the Spartans at a surprising 3-1 so far this year.

It must be noted that the Spartans have only beaten Sacramento State, Air Force and Kennesaw State. Kennesaw State is 0-4, Air Force is 1-3 and Sac State is a 2-3 FCS school. So maybe we are overstating how surprising the Spartans have been. But they did battle Washington State last week before losing just 54-52 in double overtime.

It's true that the 54-52 score might say more about how fake the future Pac-12 might be rather than how competitive San Jose State might be. But any team that can score 52 points, even in double overtime, will catch your attention.

This game is big for both the Pack and San Jose State and their respective first-year head coaches. If San Jose State wants to get to six victories and a bowl bid, they might have to do it over the next three games against Nevada, Colorado State and Wyoming. The Spartans' final five games, after all, are against Fresno State, Oregon State, Boise State, UNLV and Stanford.

Nevada might also need to beat San Jose State to get a bowl bid. The 2-3 Wolf Pack would have to somehow find four wins out of seven games against Oregon State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Colorado State, Boise State, Air Force and UNLV if it loses to San Jose State.

Beating San Jose State on the road this Saturday won't put the Wolf Pack in the College Football Playoff discussion or prompt the Pac-12 to send them an invitation. But it would be a significant victory for new head coach Jeff Choate as he rebuilds the program basically from scratch.

We are going to continue to believe in Choate and his program until they tell us not to. So, take the points and the Wolf Pack this weekend. San Jose State's CEFCU Stadium is not a frightening place to play for opponents. It's an easy trip for the Pack. San Jose State opened as a 10-point favorite and bettors have reduced that to just 6.5 points. The bettors, too, still believe in Choate and the Pack.

San Jose State's offense with playmakers Nick Nash (wide receiver), Emmett Brown (quarterback) and Floyd Chalk (running back) can put points on the board. But the Pack defense is also full of playmakers and the offense is growing each week. This game will likely come down to how well the Pack running game (with quarterback Brendon Lewis and backs Savion Red and Patrick Garwo) keeps San Jose State's offense off the field.

We like the Pack to win, something like 24-20.