MWC digs toward elusive goal

Think of the Mountain West Conference as that prison wall in "The Shawshank Redemption." The poster hanging there isn't of Rita Hayworth or Raquel Welch, but rather of a Bowl Championship Series logo, one that includes all the leagues owning automatic inclusion.

What motivation.

Here it is, 12 years later, and those from the Mountain West continue to shape a hole with that rock hammer, chipping and carving and digging away, trying to escape to a better, richer, more powerful existence.

It took Andy Dufresne 19 years to break through. Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson thinks his will be a shorter journey.

It's debatable.

Thompson on Wednesday gave his annual state of the conference address at the league's preseason media football gathering, his remarks focused largely on the sport that drives an arms race threatening to cripple those leagues not part of an automatic BCS world.

A quick recap: Thompson sounded like a man whose league emerged from the summer of conference expansion insanity where it began. No better. No worse.

He spoke about things like college football being a time-honored tradition and the importance of protecting the public and fans and alumni by keeping rivalries together, about serving first those communities that support conferences instead of basing all decisions on financial and commercial issues.

Translation: He said what you would expect from a guy whose league traded Utah for Boise State after nearly having both.

Hand it to him, though. I have a feeling if it meant automatic BCS inclusion for his league today, Thompson would have no issue crawling through that hole, breaking through that sewage pipe and dropping into that, well, you know, a thousand times over.

Can you think of a conference commissioner who has been as committed and outspoken on one single cause in the past several years than Thompson on the BCS? Dedicated doesn't begin to describe his pursuit.

But when the expansion nonsense settled and just four institutions had departed for other leagues, the Mountain West simply had traded one terrific football program for another beginning in 2011.

Boise State might have an edge over Utah in parts of the BCS formula that will decide future automatic berths, but nothing has changed when it comes to the Mountain West reaching its goal.

The best of nine teams still need to be near or at perfect, and the worst ones need to win a lot more.

"We're in good shape and need to do even better," Thompson said of the league's hope to gain automatic BCS status for the 2012-13 season. "We have to remember that it's halftime. We have played two quarters in (a four-year cycle). We can't afford to have one single 19th-ranked team this year and expect to maintain our status. We might not need to have three Top 25 teams, but we need to play well and finish the next two years strong."

Isaac Newton wasn't roaming Red Rock Resort's conference halls, meaning no one owned the math knowledge to solve all the numbers Thompson offered when stating his BCS case.

But this much is certain: Of the criteria that will determine whether a seventh conference is handed an automatic bid in two years -- where your highest-ranked team falls, overall strength of a league and how many of your teams fall into an adjusted Top 25 ranking -- the second is where the Mountain West lacks most.

It means while the UNLVs and New Mexicos and San Diego States of the league probably won't be ranked among the nation's top 50 teams any season soon, they need to stop living in the 100 range.

It means a first-year coach such as Bobby Hauck at UNLV needs to be smart when scheduling nonconference games, not all loopy like those (where have you gone, Mikey Hamrick) who crafted this season's voyage of doom.

"The whole point is, you tell me it's a four-year (cycle)," Thompson said. "I accept that. But why four years? Why not two years?

"There has only been two conferences that have performed equally to us in terms of the number of Top 12 teams and four conferences with the number of Top 25 teams the last few years.

"Doesn't that mean anything? Why do we have to do it two more years? But we do."

So they shape and chip and carve, all the while being motivated by a poster of those teams sitting at the party where the Mountain West longs to be invited.

Rita Hayworth couldn't make them dig any faster.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.