MWC/C-USA Officials Visit UTSA

According to Inside Roadrunner Sports, officials from both the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA were on campus this week to evaluate UTSA. This coincides with rumblings that I heard yesterday, and frankly, just makes sense given Brad Parrott's recent meeting with the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. It's likely that while making donation pitches, Parrott was also recruiting local businessmen to present to MWC/C-USA officials. Even if both members of the Alliance opt out of inviting the Roadrunners to their respective leagues, it's hard to imagine Craig Thompson and Britton Banowsky not taking a trip out to San Antonio to check out what the Roadrunners have to offer. At worst, UTSA would be about the fifth option for the merged mega conference that will look to add, at minimum, three schools. Today we learned via Tony Jones of the Salt Lake City Tribune that the brain trust of the Alliance visited Western Athletic Conference members Utah State and San Jose State last month, with sources strongly indicating that Utah State (and likely SJSU) will receive invitation to the MWC before July 1st. These two additions would bring the conference to 10 full members, however it has been widely speculated that Air Force will be departing for the Big East shortly.

A nine team conference could work if the merger falls through, but I feel that it is most likely that Craig Thompson will aim for a larger conference if the proposed merger falls through into a mere scheduling alliance due to a lack of large markets in the Mountain West Conference (see Cheyenne, Reno). This scenario seems most plausible at this point since a full-sports merger between C-USA and the MWC would result in 18-24 teams sharing a sole NCAA auto-bid for basketball. The Alliance scenario certainly plays into UTSA's favor. Would a nine team conference consisting of the Denver, Las Vegas, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Honolulu, Colorado Springs, Reno, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, and Bay Area markets demand a wealthy TV contract? The addition of the nation's #36 media market (San Antonio) would likely be a nice boon for the conference in their upcoming negotiations with CBS, following the death of The Mountain network. UTSA would bring the conference its fourth highest market ranking. Alternatively, the MWC could invite North Texas to add the nation's fifth largest market, however it's most likely that the Mean Green will end up in C-USA. I think the best way this thing ends up is with UTEP moving to the MWC to bring the conference to nine full members with USU and SJSU and 10 for football (Hawaii). C-USA then invites North Texas and Florida International to come to nine members. The next round of invitations would be UTSA to the MWC and Florida Atlantic and Louisiana Tech to C-USA. Two 11 team conferences with reasonable footprints, strong markets, and a scheduling agreement for a de facto in-season playoff. Count me in. How could that in-season playoff work? Stay tuned as I sketch out a plan.

Episode 14

Podcast is up! Click the link to the feed or click HERE

Dec 17 Games: Breaking Records and Failed Bits

Failed bit alert: The live chat/blog of the bowl games, high school football playoffs, soccer, Spurs basketball, and Cowboys game was a non-good.

The games were good, especially the high school stuff and I found myself watching those more than the bowl games. I missed some good stuff by doing so. Such is the problem with new media: There are more ways to watch sporting events but still only 24 hours in which to do it.

High School Games:

Aledo and future Longhorn Jonathan Gray, won. I am not the guy to talk to when it comes to evaluating his game. I've only seen the highlights and hadn't seen him play until yesterday. It is obvious that he has speed and shiftiness that makes him stand out from the rest of the kids he plays with. Insert Man Among Boys Cliche Here.



Kenny Hill led Southlake-Carroll with a Cam Newton-like performance down the stretch. Putting your best athlete at quarterback, where they touch the ball every offensive play, is pretty standard football strategy dating back to the birth of the game. Fort Bend Hightower did the same with future Aggie Bralon Addison. If you like watching run-spread quarterbacks, then this was an awesome game. It was a tight, close game that Carroll closed out by running Kenny Hill every play on the last drive to ice the game.


Steele HS lost in their bid for a back-to-back state title. I'm torn on this. I lived in Schertz-Cibolo during high school and went to Clemens. My little brother and sister went to Steele. Schertz isn't the same as when I lived there -- there is a Starbucks within the city-limits now -- you don't need to drive to the Forum anymore. As such I'm glad that my former neighborhood got there ... but I wish it was Clemens that was hoisting state titles, ya know?

Bowl Games:

Temple and Wyoming played a pretty unexciting game compared to the high school stuff that was going on at the same time. I mean, the SLC-FBH title game had 42,800+ while two of the three bowls had mid-twenty thousand attend (the New Orleans Bowl had 42K).

Watching Temple destroy anyone, let alone in a bowl game is ultra weird. Remember they got booted from the Big East for being terrible? Al Golden resurrected them and now Steve Addazio has continued that tradition. I doubt the bowls will be denying Temple a bid next time they go 8-4 (like last year). They have a punishing run game, racking up 255 yards on FIFTY ONE carries. There is a lot of scheming involved in even the most physical of running attacks but football often does come down to one big guy shoving another big guy out of the way. It is something to behold. I'm happy for them up there.

Ohio and Utah State finished a point apart. Hurm, unsurprising :

Utah State is WAC brethren and had the craziest 2-5 start ever. They lost to Auburn in a game they had one multiple times, lost in OT to Colorado State (where they tried to go for the win in a ballsy move) by one, lost to BYU the following week by a field goal, then to Fresno State by ten and La Tech by one touchdown. They then ripped off five wins by equally razor-thin margins (an average of 3.8 points including an OT win). I'm sure this will be a close, exciting game. Go Aggies.

I'm interested to see what Utah State does next year. These kinds of seasons can either demoralize a team or energize them during the off-season. It is easy motivation for everyone. They were already a good team. Look for them to get better results next season.

Ah the New Orleans Bowl. This is probably the best non-BCS bowl to go to aside from the Vegas one. An excuse to go to The Big Easy with a bunch of college buddies? Awesome. Admittedly, I checked out while this was on. I was watching the Spurs play a pre-season game while doing fiddling around with my budget (such an adult now). I'm going to try and find some time to watch the fourth quarter. ULL quarterback Blaine Gautier tossed three TDs and threw for 470 yards, setting a school record for yards and scores (surpassing fellow Cajun Jake Delhomme) and a bowl record for yardage (passed Troy's Corey Robinson's 387).

It has become a cliche to rag on the number of bowls and the mediocrity of the participants. While the casual fan may scoff at the lack of star-power at these things they do serve a purpose and when done right, they can be awesome. UTSA wasn't eligible (and won't be for a couple more seasons) for a bowl this season. Imagine, if you will, that we got into the Poinsettia Bowl (San Diego), Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Boise) or the Hawai'i Bowl (Duh)? It remains to be seen how well the UTSA base will travel, but that realities aside, how awesome would that be right now? It is December in SA, wet and rainy and fairly miserable -- wouldn't it be awesome to be planning your trip to San Diego or Hawai'i right now?

For the bigger schools who have Rose Bowl aspirations and the fan bases that are used to seeing their squads play in huge national television games every weekend, the Potato Bowl is lame. For smaller programs it is much more appreciated. There are very valid arguments for abolishing the whole thing but old reasons for the system's genesis --money for the organizers and a cool trip for the participants -- still hold up for the other bowls. 

North Texas, my alma mater hasn't been to a bowl game since 2004. I've yet to experience one as a student nor an alumnus. I am totally down for going to a "crappy, no-name" bowl with a 6-4 record.

Bowling: Dec 17th Games

This is the best time of year. Bowl games are gratuitous, fairly meaningless and numerous. When your team doesn't make one? Well it suucks.

With UTSA ineligible for a while, we have nothing to take from these games than what we did before we had a team. So what is a Runner to do? Well, we are going for WAC teams (future not current-but-leaving) and Texas teams. Why? Well those are the rules buddy.

If you are unfamiliar with how this all works, don't worry. We'll break down each and every bowl so you know what the hell is going on in this world. Capice?

Gildan New Mexico

Temple (8-4, 5-3 MAC) vs. Wyoming (8-4, 5-2 MWC)

Albuquerque, N.M.

University Stadium

Dec. 17 2 p.m. ESPN

What?

The New Mexico Bowl is fairly new. It began in 2006 and is the only annually nationally televised event in the state. Gildan makes outdoor wear and is in the first year of sponsorship..  This game began by featuring MWC and WAC teams and has moved on to include Pac-12 teams. This year, they have put Temple in there for some reason.

Famous Players


James Jones, currently of the Packers formerly of San Jose State.

Interesting Tidbit


This bowl has already had some high scoring games. Highest point total belongs to BYU last year. They put up 52 on UTEP. Also, here are their logos over the years:

Teams


Temple is interesting under Steve Addazio, former Florida co-head coach and coordinator. He leads a scrappy bunch that beat up on crappy teams. That's okay, though because for a long time Temple couldn't even do that. It is good to see Bill Cosby's alma mater good again. Wyoming may not be interesting at all but all their four losses are nothing to be ashamed of. Nebraska is more talented, Utah State is surprising good and TCU and Boise State had BCS aspirations all season.

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

Ohio (9-4, 6-2 MAC) vs. Utah State (7-5, 5-2 WAC)

 Boise, Idaho

Bronco Stadium

Dec. 17 5:30 p.m. ESPN

What?

You may remember this thing as the Humanitarian Bowl, or the Crucial.com Humanitarian Bowl, or the MPC Computers Bowl, or ht U Drove Humanitarian Bowl. This is the one on the blue turf in Boise. Interestingly, you have to provide your own sponsor, stay at a hotel for a minimum amount of time and purchase your own seats if you get invited. 2001 UCLA decided that that was stupid and declined the invite. Boise State has the most appearances (four, going 3-1).


Famous Players

There are a few on the list but I'll go with former Cowboy Woody Dantzler.

Interesting Tidbit

The ACC has the most appearances and most wins (5-2).

Teams

Ohio bested the MAC East with and dropped a heartbreaker to Northern Illinois. They were up 20 at halftime and lost 23-20. Utah State is WAC brethren and had the craziest 2-5 start ever. They lost to Auburn in a game they had one multiple times, lost in OT to Colorado State (where they tried to go for the win in a ballsy move) by one, lost to BYU the following week by a field goal, then to Fresno State by ten and La Tech by one touchdown. They then ripped off five wins by equally razor-thin margins (an average of 3.8 points including an OT win). I'm sure this will be a close, exciting game. Go Aggies. 

R+L Carriers New Orleans

San Diego State (8-4, 4-3 MWC) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette (8-4, 6-2 Sun Belt)

New Orleans, LA

Mercedes-Benz Superdome

Dec. 17 9 p.m. ESPN

What?

This is probably the most fun bowl outside of the coastal ones and the BCS behemoths. Who doesn't want an excuse to go to New Orleans? Formerly known as the Wyndham Hotels & Resorts New Orleans Bowl, it has been sponsored by R+L Carriers since 2006. The matchp is between the CUSA and the SunBelt. I was looking forward to going to this thing at least a couple times during my stay in Denton given that UNT went to four straight from 2001 to 2004. 

Famous Players

How about Schertz's own Scott Hall? The former Samuel Clemens Buffalo quarterbacked the Mean Green in the early part of the decade. 

Interesting Tidbit

The payout is a measly 325K.

Teams

San Diego State is making it's first appearance in the bowl, as they are from the MWC. It is difficult to tell how good the Aztecs were as they lost similar games to Wyoming (good ones) including their matchup with the Cowboys in early November. Losing to Michigan, Boise State, and TCU is not bad. University of Louisiana at Lafayette actually hosted the NO bowl back in 2005 when the Superdome was wrecked by Katrina. This is also their first appearance but that is because they have sucked for a while. Thanks to a surprising season and a down year from traditional Sunbelt powers MTSU and Troy, ULL found itself with a nice season. Were it not for even more surprising seasons from Hugh Freeze's 10-2 Arkansas State and a 7-5 Western Kentucky,  the Ragin Cajuns might be in a slightly better bowl.