University of Utah to join Pac 10

It seems the Mountain West Conference just cannot win one. They added Boise State to bolster their college football ranks and to try and get their conference a automatic BCS bid, but now they have lost the University of Utah to the Pac 10. The school has agreed to join the Pac 10 and its automatic BCS bid, and leave the MWC high and dry. It looks like now the Pac 10 will be spilt into two six team divisions, unless they can convince a few more schools to join.

Geographically speaking the way the Pac 10 should be spilt up would be to have a North Division consisting of the University of California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington and Washing ton State and a South division consisting of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, USC, UCLA, and Utah.

This move makes the Boise State move to the MWC from the Western Athletic Conference seem unnecessary. The college football powerhouse is still in a mid major conference with no automatic bid to the BCS each year. They could try to lure a few other Big 12 school to them, but most of the football powerhouse programs have already been realigned.

If and when (and it will happen at some point) the Big 12 erodes any further the Mountain West could go after schools like Kansas , Kansas State, Missouri, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. They would need to find another school to be a 16 team conference in their own right, and that seems a longer shot than getting any of these schools in the first place.

Related Links:

•The Business of College Sports
•MTR College Sports.com