This might be the WAC’s worst football season ever

The Western Athletic Conference’s problem this football season isn’t the now-infamous 22-minute replay.

It is irrelevance.

Think about it: The biggest national headlines WAC football has generated so far this season — and probably the largest ones it will gather all season — are for the confusion on a not-so-instant replay last week.

As for its teams, well, the WAC has almost been relegated to a national afterthought. That is if it is thought about at all. The conference has nobody in the Associated Press or USA Today top 25s. Nobody even receiving votes.

It is the first time in six years the WAC has gone into October without even a potential Bowl Championship Series contender hovering in the background. Of course, it is also the first time in a decade without Boise State. If the WAC had been a presidential candidate, it would have been Tim Pawlenty. Gone without a peep before the race really got started.

As the University of Hawaii enjoys an open date on the schedule this week, let’s take a look around and reflect on where the WAC is and, sadly, where it isn’t.

Sad because in the 33 years of UH’s membership in the WAC it is hard to recall the conference being rendered this irrelevant this early in any of those years. What we’re looking at is the possibility of a new low.

There are 120 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams and by many accounts, including Sagarin and CBSSports.com ratings, the WAC has nobody in the Top 50 and just two, UH and Nevada, in the top 76. What it does have is plenty of bottom feeders ranked in triple digits. It has several teams positioned in the bottom 20.

Consider that Hawaii, at 3-2, is the only team in the WAC with a winning overall record. Everybody else has at least three losses and a losing record. Most telling is that nobody in the WAC has beaten an FBS team that currently has a winning record. Plenty have lost to losing teams.

Five of the 13 combined victories WAC teams have this year are against Football Championship Subdivision opposition. Thank heavens for North Dakota, which has lost to two WAC members, or things would be even more bleak. The conference is 4-21 against outside-the-WAC FBS competition and doesn’t have a winning record against any other conference.

When Boise State bolted for the Mountain West Conference this summer, we knew the WAC was going to take a step back, both in perception and competition. But who knew it would be this much?

Anybody who has watched WAC games on TV this season knows the conference lineup is hardly Murderer’s Row. Misdemeanor Row, maybe. But barring a second-half surge, the conference is showing signs of being even less imposing than originally suspected.

For the defending co-champion Warriors, who were the preseason picks of the coaches and media to win the WAC title, that is something to ponder this week. If they don’t take the WAC in this, their last go-round, they’ll kick themselves for it.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.