PARDON ME, I hate to be a party pooper, but with the football season more than half finished I feel I should probably mention something. And that something is this: The Western Athletic Conference is missing something.
No, I mean more than usual. The WAC race, such as it is, has about as much pizzazz as day-old Coke. It's suffering from a terminal case of boredom and Dr. Kevorkian should be contacted immediately.Short of that, wake me on Nov. 23.
This business of 16 teams and two divisions? Biiig mistake. WAC officials couldn't have done a better job of fouling up the league if they had used blueprints and a complete set of easy-to-follow instructions. Not that the WAC was any great thing to begin with. Basically, they turned a Ford Taurus into an Edsel.
By adopting a division format to accommodate all of its new member schools - and that's another story - the league's best teams are stuck in separate divisions, which means they can't play each other. Utah (7-1) and BYU (8-1) don't play 8-0 Wyoming and 6-2 Air Force (or, for that matter, solid teams such as San Diego State and Colorado State).
The WAC shot itself in the foot. It traded eight or so meaningful, evenly matched regular-season games for one showdown at the end of the year, when the division champions meet to decide the league title.
Now the regular season consists of a half-dozen teams whistling and looking at their watches, waiting for something new to happen.
The WAC schedule should have come equipped with a fast-forward button.
The season drones on, with a weekly diet of games matching Utah and BYU against Pathetic Texas Schools Who Used to Be Good A Long Time Ago.
Faced with a weekly procession of goofballs stumbling through their stadiums, BYU and Utah are sleepwalking through the regular season, waiting for their showdown and lulling themselves and their fans into a false sense of superiority.
Wyoming, BYU and Utah are ranked in the Top 25, and Air Force is close behind, but who knows how good these teams really are? Who can tell?
Between them, the Utes and Cougars have beaten exactly one team with a winning record (5-4 Utah State). Wyoming and Air Force have beaten three winning teams between them.
How's this for excitement? In league play, BYU has played New Mexico (4-4), SMU (3-5), UNLV (0-9), Tulsa (3-4), and TCU (2-5). BYU still must play, besides Utah, always fabulous UTEP (2-5), Rice (4-3), and Hawaii (2-7), but NOT Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State, or San Diego State.
Utah has played SMU (3-5), Fresno State (3-4), UTEP (2-5), TCU (2-5), and Tulsa (3-4), with future dates against Rice (4-3), New Mexico (4-4) and BYU.
Every game is a variation on the rout theme. The average margin of victories in five WAC games for the top contenders: Air Force 29 points, Wyoming 25, BYU 24, Utah 16.
Normally, you have to wait for a presidential election for this kind of suspense.
Speaking of boring and pointless exercises, how much fun can it be for BYU fans to watch their team play five games against (bad) teams from Texas (combined record at the moment: 17-27). Seven of their 13 games this season will be against teams from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Like, who cares?
The old WAC had its flaws, but it was better than this. Compared to Saturday's Utah-Rice game, the old matchups between Utah and, say, Wyoming or Air Force look like the Super Bowl.
As near as anyone could tell, WAC officials willingly and voluntarily agreed to their new arrangement, although nobody checked their blood-alcohol levels at the time. They thought bigger would be better. The problem was, they didn't care how they got bigger, just so long as they were bigger - sort of the difference between Reggie White and Chris Farley. So they went out and signed up Rice, SMU, Tulsa, TCU, San Jose State and UNLV.
Whereas before the WAC had eight really solid programs and a couple of bad ones, now they have eight really solid programs and eight bad ones.
All of this has left the regular season very much diluted and lacking. But hang in there. Only a few more weeks to go and then the action will begin.