First things first: major kudos to Scott Barnes and Stan Albrecht for working to make this happen. Albrecht has been committed to putting athletics in a better spot ever since he arrived at USU, recognizing the benefits that successful athletics can provide a university. In Barnes' case, he made possibly the most important hiring the history of Utah State athletics when he brought Gary Andersen on board as the head football coach. On top of that, he's mended fences with Nike President and USU grad Charlie Denson, gotten the ball rolling on numerous facilities upgrades, and now guided the Aggies into what looks to be the most stable conference situation in the school's history.
THE CHALLENGE
With the new conference will come a new challenge in staying competitive. In the current WAC, USU football had risen to the level of competing with any team on any given night, finishing second in the conference this past season. In basketball, USU has largely dominated the conference despite this past season's struggles. A return to championship form looks to be on the horizon for this season though with the recruiting class and transfers the Aggies have coming in.
In the Mountain West, everything gets a little bit harder. In both sports, the conference as a whole is just better, meaning every win in football will be a big one, while in basketball, no longer will there be those cupcake games that USU has been able to switch to cruise control and still win.
THE PERKS
With numerous bowl tie-ins, the Mountain West gives the Aggies much better opportunities to land in a more prestigious bowl game should they make this whole bowl-eligibility thing more of a routine. In basketball is where maybe the biggest benefit lies. Over the past three years, the Mountain West has had a total of 11 NCAA Tournament bids, compared to the WAC, which has had just four. If USU is able to maintain the kinds of records that have become the norm in Logan, at-large bids with decent seeding will be in the picture. Gone will be the days where USU is sitting on a 28-win season and worrying that an invite to the big dance might not be coming. Not only that, but if somehow another 30-win season with a conference tournament championship comes about, don't count on some bullshit 12-seed like we'd see in the WAC.
STABILITY
As decent a situation as the WAC was in 2005 when USU joined, the WAC back then is not the caliber of conference as the Mountain West is today. Prowess aside, the Mountain West is a much more stable situation as well. With the teams that will be in the conference come 2013, nobody will be much of a risk to be snatched up by any of the BCS conferences. And on top of all that, commissioner Craig Thompson has proven to be pretty damn savvy in what he does. When all this conference shuffling started going down in a big way back in 2010, Thompson mercilessly destroyed then-WAC commission Karl Benson in every way. Having both that leadership, as well as a strong core of alike teams in the same conference makes for an ideal situation for USU moving forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment