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Newly expanded to 12 teams, this is the biggest alignment the Mountain West Conference has ever had for football.
But bigger sure hasn’t meant better, so far, for a conference that is taking its nonconference lumps regularly in 2013.
The MWC is 12-16 in nonconference games and might just be headed for the worst out-of-conference performance in its 15-year history. It is a record that looks worse when you consider the conference is 4-15 against fellow nonleague Football Bowl Subdivision opponents and 8-1 against Football Championship Subdivision foes and has an overall strength of schedule that rates 10th among Division I conferences and independents.
Against Bowl Championship Series conference competition, the MWC has been, well, no competition going 1-13. The average margin of defeat against BCS teams has been 25.6 points. They are 0-8 against Pac-12 teams and 0-3 versus the Big Ten.
What this means, if you are the University of Hawaii and preparing to open your conference season, is that there are few teams in the MWC to be feared if the offense gets it together.
A UH schedule that once had Murderer’s Row possibilities is looking more like misdemeanor row. And any hopes for the MWC dividing up some serious BCS money by having a representative playing on New Year’s Day are pretty much over.
Thank heavens for Cal Poly (twice), UC Davis, Sacramento State, Colgate, Tennessee-Martin, Weber State and Northern Colorado on the schedule these past weeks. And, now, here come Alabama (Colorado State), Southern California (Utah State) and Oregon State (San Diego State).
The only unbeaten team is Fresno State (2-0), whose credentials include a one-point overtime victory over Rutgers and a defeat of Cal Poly.
When heavy flooding forced the postponement of the Bulldogs’ game at Colorado on Saturday, it summed up the start of the season for the MWC, which has seen very little go right. The Bulldogs were nine-point favorites against CU, one of the few games against a BCS opponent lately that an MWC team was expected to win.
Friday we see if the No. 25 Bulldogs, the toughest team remaining on the ’Bows’ schedule, are ready to supplant Boise State as the team to beat in the conference when they meet the Broncos on ESPN.
Meanwhile, Nevada’s helmets are still spinning after being collectively outscored 120-27 by two FBS opponents, UCLA and Florida State.
Then there is San Diego State (0-2), which had been forecast to be the Bulldogs’ chief competition for the West Division title. Instead, the Aztecs fell badly in a
40-19 loss to FCS opponent Eastern Illinois in the season opener and haven’t been able to get back up. San Diego State was subsequently smacked around by Ohio State, 42-7, largely minus Braxton Miller.
As Aztecs coach Rocky Long told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “We’re bad right now, a bad football team.”
In the MWC the Aztecs might not be alone.
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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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