Columnist Dean Juipe: MWC drops off BCS radar screen

Dean Juipe

Monday, Oct. 21, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

When the Mountain West Conference basketball coaches met Sunday in Las Vegas, among the topics they might well have privately discussed was football. Specifically, Mountain West Conference football.

"Let's hope our season goes better than theirs," any of the league's eight basketball coaches may have said of their football colleagues.

"Yeah," another may have agreed. "The last thing we want is a season like they're having.

"Look at the carnage: their best team (Air Force) is no longer in the national picture; a couple of their other so-called good teams (Colorado State and San Diego State) have suffered some unbelievable losses; their most stable program (Brigham Young) has self-destructed; and not a single person in the country is impressed with either the caliber of play within the league or the league's overall stature."

After a dutiful pause for reflection (and, perhaps, some wishful thinking) the basketball coaches likely went on with their business. But left behind was a league whose football teams are now eight weeks into the season and merely playing out the string.

With Air Force losing to Notre Dame (as it did Saturday night), the MWC has had its last hopeful breath crushed out of it. Unlike a year ago when BYU won its first 12 games to threaten if not tarnish the Bowl Championship Series ratings process, the Mountain West has gone quietly and meekly into the recesses of the typical football fan's consciousness.

The Air Force loss was a huge and largely unexpected blow to the league, but, in truth, this has been a season of unexpected blows to the MWC. And nothing that happens from here on out in 2002 can salvage the year from a broadened viewpoint.

Yet "salvage" is now the key word in locker rooms around the league. Each and every team has been reduced to salvaging what it can from what looks to be a lost season.

Air Force is apt to rebound and win the MWC championship, but it will be slotted into a second-tier bowl.

Colorado State, after opening with some promise, is still burdened by a loss to a Fresno State team that, in turn and for the sake of perspective, was a sorry 67-21 loser to Boise State this past Friday.

San Diego State is 2-0 in conference play but 0-5 outside it, with its own loss to Fresno plus another one to Idaho -- which is the Vandals' only win of the season.

New Mexico was staunch enough to take Air Force to overtime but lame enough to have lost to New Mexico State.

UNLV surprised its followers by beating BYU Saturday to retain its fleeting bowl hopes, yet the Rebels are wildly inconsistent and have been subjected to a fair amount of ridicule.

BYU is in the midst of an off-the-map fall that has to be jeopardizing coach Gary Crowton's job.

Wyoming is so bad its only win came against The Citadel.

And Utah has now lost five straight games.

It makes for a flat-lined football league that isn't so much affected by parity as it is ineptitude, as well as one that has once again played itself off the BCS radar screen.

And while the remaining games may yet prove interesting, few will have any lingering value.

Basketball, anyone?