By Ron Kantowski (contact)

Fri, Nov 21, 2008 (2 a.m.)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Utah players celebrate during a win against Oregon State on Oct. 2. If Utah beats BYU on Saturday, the Utes will complete an undefeated season and secure a hefty payout for the entire conference.

If the BYU football team knows what’s good for it — or at least the eight dwarfs who play sports in its vacuum under the Mountain West Conference banner — it will take a dive against Utah on Saturday, thereby assuring the Utes a spot in the lucrative Bowl Champion Series and the dwarfs a tidy paycheck that could reach $1 million, at least when rounded off to the nearest one.

It will never happen, of course, for various reasons, the foremost being that unlike the eight dwarfs, BYU does not need the money. The second foremost is that BYU would derive perverse pleasure from destroying archrival Utah’s season, especially at this late date.

The third foremost is that if the Cougars were to take a dive, somebody — probably a Utah fan — eventually would sing like a canary. Then there would be an NCAA investigation and those are never good for business, especially when the economy is softer than Kansas State’s nonconference schedule.

But the fact you even can make an argument for somebody taking a dive shows how truly flawed the system is in college football.

It’s a good thing players wouldn’t benefit directly from a situation such as the one described above or college football one day soon could have a scandal on its hands that would make what the CCNY basketball team of the 1950s did look like keeping the change when your old man sent you to the store for a pack of cigarettes.

Even in a best-case scenario, the current system, which tries like the dickens to exclude the non-BCS conferences from collecting their share of the Fox (soon to be ESPN) TV money, forces guys like MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson to say he’s not choosing sides this week when you know darn well that he is.

Because if he weren’t, he would be guilty of not considering the best interests of his constituents.

And of being a fool.

Any BYU or Utah fan in Southern Nevada who can’t afford the digital hookup to watch the game of the year in the Mountain West on TV — I’ve heard from several — knows that Craig Thompson and his bosses, the MWC presidents, are quite capable of being fools without being forced into it.

But shame on the BCS power brokers and the NCAA fat cats for not giving them a way out of this.

Chris Hill, the Utah athletic director, said if people are thinking of this year’s Holy War as a money thing, it’s a shame.

This is why you can never trust an athletic director. If you ask for black cherry Kool-Aid, they’ll try to get you to drink Jonestown lemon-lime.

I beg to differ with Hill’s politically correct BCS, give or take the “C.” If people think of it as a money thing, that’s not a shame, that’s being fiscally prudent.

I bet they’re thinking about it at UNLV, where money is currently harder to come by than a 1913 Buffalo nickel.

The Rebels are riding the bus to San Diego State this week. UNLV can’t even afford to send the cheerleaders and dance team on the road anymore.

I would hope that the bean counters at the other dwarf schools are looking at Utah’s possible inclusion in the BCS as a money thing. If not, they’re fools, too.

The best guess is that if the Utes crash the BCS, each Mountain West school will receive a check for at least $650,000. With that free parking money, maybe then the football team could afford to fly on Southwest. Maybe the Rebel Girls could travel to Laramie, if they persist in wanting to do that. Maybe somebody at the Thomas & Mack Center could figure out how to line up the numbers on the new scoreboards.

All I know is that if the BYU-Utah game were run like other sports, the MWC would bring in a couple of French figure-skating judges and start counting its money.

But here’s an alternative for the honest types who go to church on Sunday. The Mountain West brain trust should take the BCS ledger from the past 10 years, the one that shows $206 million on the Big Ten’s bottom line to $22.5 million on theirs, and find out whether Curt Flood’s lawyers have any sons who have inherited the family business.

Of course, if the BCS cartel would be willing to divide $375 million (the amount ESPN will pay to televise the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls along with the BCS championship game from 2011 to 2013) by 11 (the number of total conferences) instead of six (the number of BCS conferences) then the have-nots could agree not to so much as whisper “antitrust” within earshot of the haves.

Then guys like Craig Thompson and Chris Hill could say it’s not about the money. And maybe the rest of us might listen.