Around the MWC: BYU, Utah say TCU belongs in BCS title game

TCU has played so well this season — especially in blowing out fellow Mountain West Conference heavyweights BYU and Utah — that talk has turned from whether the fourth-ranked Horned Frogs will break into the Bowl Championship Series to whether they deserve to play in the national title game.

Even if TCU — as expected — wins its final two games, it seems unlikely it will get a chance to play for the title without upsets of one or more of the teams above it.

But the coaches of the other two teams in the MWC’s “Big Three” believe the Horned Frogs would be able to hang with any team in the nation.

Asked Tuesday if he’d like to see TCU get a shot at Florida, Alabama or Texas — the top three teams in the BCS and Associated Press rankings — Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said, “I would love to see that, because personally I believe they match up with anybody in the country.”

So does BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall.

“This idea that they couldn’t play with anyone consistently on any given weekend I think is false”, he said. “They can play with any team in the country regardless of what that team is ranked, and they could do it on a weekly basis. … They’re traditionally very strong on defense, but what they’ve done this year is their offense now has been able to generate points regardless of how their defense is playing and then they’re very good on special teams. So they’re fast, they’re diverse, they’re well-coached.”

In addition to talk about the national title game, there was discussion on Tuesday’s MWC coaches conference call about who would win a mythical game between the Horned Frogs and the 2005 Utah team that broke the BCS.

With that type of hype swirling, TCU coach Gary Patterson is doing his best to keep his team focused on what’s in front of it.

“We have two (regular season) ballgames left,” he said. “One’s on the road at a place last time we went there we got beat (2007 at Wyoming), so we understand what it’s like to go to Laramie, Wyo., and not play well. … We want to win a conference championship, we know that we have to win at least one out of the two to do that, and if we want to do anything else besides that, we have to win both. So right now it’s keep your nose down and get ready to go to Wyoming.”

Sanford doesn’t take blame
UNLV coach Mike Sanford, who has a 15-43 record as the Rebels’ coach, was fired Sunday, effective at the end of the season. Sanford will coach UNLV in its season finale against San Diego State on Nov. 28.

In a press conference with Las Vegas media on Monday and on the MWC conference call Tuesday morning, Sanford questioned the commitment to football by UNLV.

“In the last 20 years that UNLV has played close to or at BCS-level competition, no football coach has left this program with a winning record, which includes a man — John Robinson — who is being inducted into the college football Hall of Fame next month,” Sanford said at his news conference Monday. “In my opinion, this must be a systemic, infrastructure and commitment issue, and not a coach issue.”

On Tuesday, Sanford said three schools — TCU, BYU and Utah — have made commitments “to truly be BCS-level schools from every area as far as finances, facilities, commitment, fan support, community support, the whole deal. And I think Air Force is right there.”

Sanford said each of the other five programs in the conference have “some kind of shortcoming, some kind of a difficulty as to why they have a hard time breaking into that top group.”

In Sanford’s first four seasons the Rebels won two, two, two and five games, respectively. They have to win against San Diego State to win five games this season.

“I don’t think I failed,” Sanford said. “I think I just ran out of time.”

Perhaps. But within five years, a coach has a chance to fill his roster with his recruits and establish schemes.

“I think that all of us know that when we become head coaches you have to show significant progress within at least three years,” Mendenhall said. “And five is a long time, if you’re winning or if you’re not winning, to stay at the same place. So I believe that any of us, not only coach Sanford, you have to win in Year 5, and evidently there weren’t enough wins, if that is what the reasoning was.”