Mountain West Coaches Punt On Answering If League Is Best From Among The Group Of 5
Is the Mountain West as good as the American?
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
A great question gets a very awkward answer.
The Mountain West has a pretty storied tradition by being the first league to bust the BCS back in 2004 with Utah, the first team to make a New Year’s Six Bowl game and has an overall record of 4-1 in those games.
Last year, Central Florida had a great year by going undefeated and defeated Auburn in the Peach Bowl. They then decided to claim it as a national title and run very far with that to promote the school and the league. This piggy backs on the AAC shoe-horning its way into as being the sixth power league.
During the Mountain Divison roundtable with the coaches, a question was asked about what does the Mountain West need to do to keep that traditional spot of being the top league amongst the Group of Five.
A solid question which was addressed to the group, but it took an awkward seven seconds of silence before New Mexico head coach Bob Davie took to answering the question.
His response was not a great one either to promote the league, but he does come around at the end saying it is ultimately up to the team. (You may have to click for sound as it should be automatically muted).
[jwplayer EQwAzyzw-Esf0Ippc]“I think with all of the hype all, or whatever you want to call it, that the conference did it still came down to UCF. They were a heck of a football team with a heck of a quarterback.
“That is why these television games even though they may start at 8:30 or 9 o’clok at night are so imporant. You may say that not many people watch and throw the statistic out there where 100,000 or 200,000 people. Somewhere there is somebody that matters watching that game whether it be a committee member, a commissioner of another conference or bowl representative.
“It still came down to UCF winning and having that kind of team, no matter what the conference says. We all see what it is and taking your team and doing the best with your team and not worrying about a lot of the other stuff.”
It is not up to the teams to really go out and promote the whole league, as Davie notes. However, why not pump your chest a bit and mention some of the history of the conference, and that for the Mountain West to be considered the best among the Group of Five it needs to claim the New Year’s Six bowl spot, win bowl games and beat as many Power Five teams as possible.
We don’t have comments set up on the site, but if you want to continue the conversation to agree, disagree or yell at the author head over to the MWCBoard.
