Wed, Sep 1, 2010 (7:38 p.m.)
Ryan Greene and Ray Brewer end a brief hiatus from the Rebel Room to not only discuss the ongoing movement both in and out by Mountain West Conference members, but also take a look at this weekend's UNLV football opener against No. 12 Wisconsin at Sam Boyd Stadium.
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Since the Southern Nevada years when the Rebels played teams like Southern Utah right up the road a bit, I've been a fan of both my boyhood college town's college (BYU) and UNLV. I may be the only animal of my kind, but that's OK. I was behind the move to leave the MWC for the basic reason that I haven't been able to see a BYU or UNLV game, on the tube in 4 years. The only exceptions would be the Oklahoma game, the LVB, and the NCAA tourney. Had BYU been allowed to buy the rights to rebroadcast its home games they would never had taken the hard road to independence. Despite assurances that the mnt network contract would evolve into more exposure, such as Comcast carrying its own products, (they own the mnt) nothing happened.
Could the BCS invite the MWC, had Utah and BYU stayed, likely not? Three MWC teams including San Diego St, CSU and New Mexico trail even Weber State's RPI. The top three can never succeed to the point that they can carry the bottom 4 or 5. The opening weekend showed that the situation remains the same, AFA, SDS, Wyo. played teams with losing 2009 records, from the lower division and got wins that didn't help the conference. New Mexico and CSU got blasted. I love the hire UNLV made bringing in a great coach and I respect scheduling a ranked opponent and giving it a good effort, the moves to improve are apparent. The team looked vastly improved, more spirited and competitive than the previous editions. I hoped for an upset similar to the win at ASU, and for a packed house, it just didn't happen. Before you blast BYU, consider the frustration in holding up your end, to see that it doesn't matter when the teams (I'm not including the Rebels) at the bottom do nothing but embarrass themselves.