Note to WAC Commissioner

This story includes the following quote from the WAC commissioner:

"It's not just WAC schools," says WAC commissioner Karl Benson. "I think schools in the Mountain West and Conference USA, as well, are going to look at what Boise State has accomplished this year and evaluate what it takes to get into that BCS game."

Uhhhmmm...someone needs to send Karl a note and remind him that the MWC knows what it takes to get into that BCS game. Afterall, we paved that road, we broke the ice, the system, and the Big East Champion. If it wasn't for Utah breaking the BCS and forcing them to make another bowl game and change up the computer computations, the Bronco's triumph would have never been.

Someone should also remind BSU that Utah ended up 5th (4th AP) overall and did not get to share a championship, also set new Fiesta Bowl records, and sent a 1st round draft pick to the NFL 6 months later.

That's what it takes not only to make it to a BCS game, but to break the BCS system as well. I didn't see congress get excited over this game, and I liked to see how Utah's 2005 Appearance still cast its shadows over this came in all of the commentating and reports, as it should have.

I think the WAC Commissioner must still be bugged that the MWC for the most part has lived up to it's creed it stated back in 1998 when the 8 teams left the WAC.

Will someone also send a note to BSU President Robert Kustra letting him know we are inviting him to the MWC, soon to be MTN 10 (Mountain 10) Conference?

Here's to 2007.

Craig Thompson
MWC Commissioner

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their time, their way
Boise State traces a path to what Fresno State still only dreams about: a date in a big-time football bowl.
By George Hostetter / The Fresno Bee
12/27/06 04:18:30
Forget maturity. To heck with good manners. Throw mama's advice about grace in the face of disappointment out the window.
Boise State made it to a Bowl Championship Series football game and the multimillion-dollar payday that goes with it. And Fresno State didn't.
Bulldogs fans wouldn't be human if they weren't sick with envy.
The contrast between the two schools was once stark.
Boise State was a junior college only 40 years ago. Five years earlier, in 1961, Fresno State had captured the national spotlight by going undefeated and crushing a tough Bowling Green team in the Mercy Bowl.
The Broncos were playing Division I-AA football in 1992 when the Bulldogs were thumping USC in the Freedom Bowl.
Boise State didn't play in its first Division I-A bowl until 1999, and that as a member of the lowly Big West Conference, which the Bulldogs had fled earlier in the decade for the Western Athletic Conference.
Boise State has defeated only three schools from BCS conferences since it joined the WAC in 2001. Fresno State in 2001 beat three BCS teams within 14 days.
Bronco Stadium holds about 10,000 fewer fans than Bulldog Stadium. Boise State's athletic budget is smaller than Fresno State's.
Don't these trend lines suggest Fresno State should be the first WAC school to break the Big Boys' barrier and earn a berth in a BCS bowl?
But it'll be No. 9 Boise State that tangles with No. 7 Oklahoma in Monday's Fiesta Bowl, becoming only the second school from a non-BCS conference to play in a BCS bowl. Utah was the first, in 2005, but the Broncos' feat, in so short a time, is more impressive by far. The Utes were beating the likes of Oregon and Colorado when Kennedy was president.
The Bulldogs, coming off a 4-8 season, will watch the Broncos-Sooners battle on the living room TV.
How did this reversal of fortune happen?
Officials close to both programs aren't sure.
"If it was that much of a science, everybody would have the answers," says Paul Oliaro, chairman of the Fresno State Athletic Corp. board.
"I don't know why Fresno State hasn't done it," says Hank Smith, president of the Bulldog Foundation scholarship fund drive. "Everything has just worked out right for Boise State."
Yet, Boise State clearly did something right. And it's fair to wonder if Fresno State did something wrong.
No one at Fresno State begrudges Boise State its success. The Bee left numerous messages for Bulldogs coach Pat Hill, but was unable to contact him. But throughout this season, Hill was generous with praise whenever the Broncos' program was discussed at his weekly news conferences.
Former Bulldogs coach Jim Sweeney probably best summed up Fresno State's attitude. Asked his opinion of Boise State's Fiesta Bowl invitation, he replied: "Isn't that marvelous?"
Division I-A football, though, is a no-nonsense industry with millions of dollars at stake. Boise State associate athletic director Bob Madden estimates the Broncos will clear as much as $3.5 million after expenses from the Fiesta Bowl. The other WAC schools, including Fresno State, will get a much thinner slice of the bowl's payout.
The future of Fresno State's football program could benefit from an unsentimental review of recent events. Here are some factors that may partially explain why that big check is headed to Idaho rather than the central San Joaquin Valley:
Stability at the top. Madden says Boise State has benefitted from having the same athletic director — Gene Bleymaier — for a quarter century. Football coaches come and go, Madden says, but the athletic department's vision remains firm.
Hill has worked for three athletic directors and at least one interim AD. The tenures of two ADs — Al Bohl and Scott Johnson — were marked by periods of controversy outside football. Did this hurt the football program? It probably didn't help.
Broken momentum. "It would have been a much easier path to success if we'd been
able to stay in the old WAC," Sweeney says.
But the old WAC essentially died in May 1998 when eight schools announced they were bolting to form a new conference (soon named the Mountain West), effective in 1999-00. Until then, Fresno State's rising football fortunes had coincided with the higher stature of each new conference affiliation.
But the fallen WAC convinced Fresno State that it had to find a path to national renown outside the conference. That meant embracing a tough nonconference schedule — with checkered results.
Unbroken momentum. Boise State, on the other hand, never suffered a similar shattering of the spirit. It grew from a junior college to a state college to a state university, from Division II to Division I-AA to Division I-A, from the Big Sky Conference to the Big West to the WAC.
It was a natural progression, Madden says.
And, with each step, enthusiasm among players, coaches and fans grew as well.
Focus on the basics. Boise State puts great value on winning the conference title, Madden says. The Broncos have won or shared five titles since joining the WAC.
The Bulldogs don't dismiss the WAC's importance, but they've concentrated far more energy on their nonconference schedule. Perhaps that's why Fresno State is surprised every season by one or two WAC opponents.
Says Sweeney: "If there is one word that exemplifies Boise State's program and has been somewhat lacking in our program, it is consistency."
The changing bowl landscape. The BCS started with the 1998 regular season. Six conferences — Pac-10, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern and Big East — plus independent Notre Dame pretty much had the four BCS bowls locked up.
Schools in non-BCS conferences howled. Today, there are five BCS bowls and non-BCS schools have a better chance of landing an at-large invitation.
It's not easy, though. High poll rankings at the end of the regular season are vital. It helps if the best teams in several BCS conferences lose a couple of games each. And going undefeated is a must.
Scheduling. Says Boise State's Madden: "We haven't overscheduled. If you put all your marbles in one basket, and that doesn't work out for you, that can affect the rest of your season."
Translation: Play a worthy nonconference schedule, but don't get intoxicated with dreams of beating Texas in Austin, Florida in Gainesville or Michigan in Ann Arbor. At least, not yet.
In nonconference games this season, the Broncos beat I-AA Sacramento State and Oregon State at home and Wyoming and Utah on the road. Only Oregon State is from a BCS conference. The Beavers and the Utes earned bowl berths.
This raises perhaps the biggest difference between the football programs at Boise State and Fresno State.
Faced with being frozen out of the BCS bowl scene in the late 1990s, Hill and the Bulldogs decided to storm the BCS gates.
They essentially said: You think we're not good enough for you? We'll play any of you, anywhere, anytime — and win. Then you'll have to let us in.
How can you not admire a coach and program with such pride?
But where Fresno State went wrong was forgetting that American life always overwhelms an aristocratic, privilege-by-birth system.
It's not always quick, simple or pretty. But, sooner or later, opportunity expands to meet demand. Even in Division I-A football.
Boise State didn't forget this truth.
So, while Fresno State was traveling to Columbus to play Ohio State and Norman to play Oklahoma and Baton Rouge to play Louisiana State, and playing with courage yet getting soundly beaten, Boise State was traveling a different path.
The Broncos succeeded where the odds were in their favor. They watched what they spent. They built a reputation for excellence. They concentrated on winning the conference. They didn't "overschedule."
And what happened? The Broncos went undefeated this season and positioned themselves to exploit the chance of a lifetime.
Of course, Boise State officials couldn't have anticipated events unfolding this way nine months ago, let alone nine years.
But predicting the future isn't the point. What counts is preparing for a future impossible to predict.
Boise State did, and that's why it's playing Oklahoma on Monday in a BCS bowl.
The game's importance figures to reverberate throughout Division I-A football.
"It's not just WAC schools," says WAC commissioner Karl Benson. "I think schools in the Mountain West and Conference USA, as well, are going to look at what Boise State has accomplished this year and evaluate what it takes to get into that BCS game."
The reporter can be reached at ghostetter@fresnobee.com or(559) 441-6272.