With Boise State and San Diego State officially reneging on a planned 2013 move to the Big East, the Mountain West has reached 12 football-playing members for this season and beyond (maybe).
As a result, the conference has announced a divisional look to the league as well as a significant postseason addition.
In a release, the Mountain West confirmed that the conference will split into two six-team divisions and, for the first time, conduct a league championship game. That first MWC title game will be played December 7, 2013, at the home stadium of the team with the highest BCS ranking.
As far as the divisional alignment goes, the conference has been divided into Mountain and West divisions (See how easy and non-pretentious that is, Big Ten?). The former will consist of Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, New Mexico, Utah State and Wyoming, the latter Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, San Diego State, San Jose State and UNLV.
It had previously been announced that San Jose State and Utah State would be leaving the WAC and joining the MWC for the 2013 season.
The divisional alignment was based on common geographic regions and traditional rivalries, as determined by the league’s athletic directors.
The release went on to state that each team will play five divisional games and three cross-divisional contests annually, with the actual rotational sequence and matchups will be developed via computer scheduling models.
Division names that make sense. The Big 10 should take a remedial naming course from the Mountain West.
I’m usually a pretty strict believer in geographic divisions, but I’d have gone a different direction in this case to preserve rivalries:
MWC “Charter Schools” : San Diego State, UNLV, Colorado State, Wyoming, Air Force and New Mexico.
MWC “New” : Boise, Fresno, Nevada, San Jose State, Utah State and Hawaii.
Rivalries completely intact and probably a more balanced split.
I like it..but they should play the champ. game at the cardinals stadium or the chargers stadium…but if hawaii the highest ranked team dat would be an awesome site to play
As far as the divisional alignment goes, the conference has been divided into Mountain and West divisions (See how easy and non-pretentious that is, Big Ten?).
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LOL… Big 10+2…. what a joke of a conference.
Delaney…. please know that the “legends and leaders” makes you the brunt of SO many jokes… that… and getting owned in Bowl season…
The championship game should be played at a neutral site.
Only one conference cares about geography. the south eastern conference has kentucky which is not south, texas a&m which isn’t east, and missouri which is mid and west! of course the atlantic coast conference has taken a team from kentucky and a team from pennsylvania, neither of which touch the atlantic coast! the big east will expand to the western state of texas (althought it wanted to go as far as california). the big 12 for some reason has west virginia, half a country away; while the big 10 is the only one that even makes georgraphic sense with all member states touching
I only count 5 teams in the “West” division. Who is the other team?
@scalpemseminoles
Kentucky is in the South
Texas A&M is also in the South
Missouri – Wh0 cares?
Nebraska (BIG10) doesn’t touch any of the other member states (at least I don’t think so)
Wow and the West teams play west of the mountains, Genius! Remarkable how easy that was.
Hey Tim, Nebraska touches Iowa. Just so you know
@bigfatpaulie27
Ok….I stand corrected.
But I just checked my map of the US and Missouri borders Arkansas so all the SEC teams touch each other too.
scalp, the Pac-12 makes sense geographically.
I like the idea of the highest rank team hosting the title game. In so many of these conference championship games, the stadium is half empty and there is no atmosphere.
With it being at a stadium of a team involved, you can almost guarantee sellout.
The Pac-12 championship is played at the stadium of a participant, and a sell-out is not guaranteed.