Ten years in the Mountain

While enjoying the afterglow of a weekend that demonstrated how far his league has come, Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson was reminded how far it still has to go.

It was several days after a quartet of Mountain West teams beat Pac-10 teams Sept. 13.

Thompson was on a plane and was engaged in conversation by the man sitting next to him. When talk turned to his profession, Thompson told the man he worked with the Mountain West Conference.

"He said, ‘Is that the league (Division I-AA) Montana State is in?'" Thompson recalled this week. "That floored me."

Thompson mentioned some of the Mountain West's teams - such as BYU, Utah, TCU and Air Force - and that sparked the man's memory. He had read that day in his newspaper an article about Mountain West teams going 4-0 against Pac-10 squads.

"And then he said, ‘Oh, yeah. You guys are having a heck of a year,'" Thompson said.

"But it took that one extra step for him to realize who we were."

That pretty much sums up the Mountain West in its 10th football season: It's good enough to play with the big boys but hasn't quite permeated the collective conscious of average sports fans. On the morning of Sept. 14, the hosts of a sports talk show in Dallas wondered if Utah and BYU were in the Western Athletic Conference.

"Probably a remaining hurdle is brand identity," Thompson said.

The league is making some progress in that area thanks in large part to its improving television deal. Two of its partners - Versus and CBS College Sports - slowly are gaining more national recognition. And, more importantly, the conference's network, The mtn., finally is available nationwide thanks to the deal with DirecTV.

Air Force fans on the East Coast, for example, can watch Saturday night's game at San Diego State on The mtn. if they purchase a certain DirecTV package.

"More of our teams are getting to be seen by people from other parts of the country that have never been able to see our teams play," said New Mexico's Rocky Long, who has been a coach since the league's inception.

The Mountain West brand also has been helped by the unbeaten starts and high rankings of No. 9 BYU and No. 14 Utah. Both teams - especially the Cougars - have garnered national media attention.

In addition, Colorado State coach Steve Fairchild, who was an assistant in the league's inaugural year, said the level of coaching in the conference has increased. Air Force coach Troy Calhoun said the league's overall talent level has gone up dramatically.

Calhoun also noted that teams have made a greater commitment to improving stadiums and indoor facilities.

All that helps, but Thompson knows the road to real respect - an automatic Bowl Championship Series bid for his conference - will come only with more days like the Sept. 13 sweep of the Pac-10.

The BCS assigns automatic bids to six conferences after four-year evaluation periods, and one such period started this season. The evaluation weighs the average rank of the highest-ranked team in each league, the average rank of all the conference teams and the number of teams in the Top 25.

"This year's a good year to start the next four-year cycle," Thompson said. "We need to have a lot of years like this year and then business will take care of itself even under current criteria."

-

Contact the Writer: 636-0365 or jake.schaller@gazette.com. Check out our Air Force blog at gazetteafasports.freedomblogging.com