MWC is OK for me
“Did you hear the Big 12 might kick Baylor out of the
conference?”
“I guess the Pac-10 might expand to 12 teams and they may add
CSU and BYU.”
“CSU needs to get into a BCS conference.”
I’ve heard similar versions of these quotes many times over the
past year or two. Yes, it would be nice if CSU were in a BCS
conference. The money would flow like the Amazon into the athletic
program and coach Lubick may take the program from a perennial
top-25 team to a perennial top-15 team.
But, sorry to say Ram fans, it is not going to happen, at least
not in the near future, nor does it need to happen. Lubick and the
players have certainly built a good enough football program for a
BCS conference, but conference realities and lack of support will
keep it from happening.
The only BCS conferences CSU would fit into would be the Big 12
or the Pac-10. On the off chance the Big 12 dropped Baylor, I don’t
think it would be looking toward Fort Collins to fill the void.
Baylor is in the Big 12 South, so the conference would most likely
look to another Texas team like our Conference USA foes Texas
Christian.
The Pac-10 doesn’t seem to have any need or want to expand to 12
teams. The only reason would be a championship game. If they did
add two more teams, BYU is a viable candidate, but CSU wouldn’t fit
the bill for the second and most important reason: money.
CSU has the lowest stadium capacity (30,000) of any team in the
MW C. Although the $15.2 million donation by the Bohemian
foundation will expand the stadium to near 36,000, it still doesn’t
fit the bill for the Pac-10. Lubick was praising the turnout of
28,611 at his press conference today.
The attendance problem does not lie with the students it is
squarely on the community.
“(Community support is) the biggest problem at Colorado State,”
Lubick said in an interview last week. “I think the students are
great. We’ve got a nice community out here of 120,000 and the
product has been good. You would think that we should sell 15,000
or 20,000 season tickets and that would make all the difference.
That’s our own fault. All those other schools have 30,000 season
ticket holders and their schools aren’t much bigger than ours.”
The reason, I think, for the lack of support is past. When most
CSU alumni were here, the football team was horrible. They are
excited about the team now, but it is hard to shake the tradition
of not going to many games.
The attitude at Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee or any other big
name school is, “I’m going to the game barring an emergency.”
But there is a lingering attitude in Fort Collins of, “Oh, we’re
only playing Weber State this week, it’s going to be a blowout.”
Or, “The weather is supposed to suck, I don’t know if I’m
going.”
I think the transformation in attitude of demanding temporary
seating be put in or the stadium be expanded more is happening, and
we will get there in five or six years.
But when we reach that point, we don’t need to be in the
BCS.
The MWC is a solid conference, perhaps the best outside the BCS.
This year, San Diego State should have knocked off the defending
national champion Ohio State Buckeyes on the road in a 16-13 loss.
UNLV just beat No. 15 Wisconsin in Madison, one of the toughest
places to play in the country. BYU beat Georgia Tech; Utah beat
California. Not to mention CSU’s success against the BCS over the
past couple years, including wins against Colorado, Virginia and
California to name a few.
I agreed with Lubick when he told me “the BCS is full of BS.”
They need teams outside the BCS for their non-conference games, and
they always get to play at home.
“I wish they would break away and have they’re own little
60-team league and play each other all the time. They couldn’t
survive doing that,” Lubick said.
No they couldn’t.
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