So, the Mountain West Conference lifted the moratorium on expansion? Ho-hum.
Expected, barely worth headlines, barely turned my prop. Why? Because it was as expected as summer drought.
The real news that fell out of the MWC meetings wasn't this adding of one to four additional teams that will hit between 12 and 24 months depending on TV contracts and other league expansions.
The real MWC meat was more subtle, more political, sort of raised eyebrows and head shaking of heightened disgust over the iron-clad lockout of the elite BCS conferences and their leadership.
If you read between the lines, the have-nots — which the MWC, WAC, Conference USA, Big Sky and others clearly are — are getting ticked. The blatant hypocrisy at the highest levels of governing bodies of major universities is a blister that's about to burst.
The BCS folks (ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, and Big East) know this and are casting side-glances at one another. It hasn't gone to the guilt stage, but it's past the embarrassing marker.
Look for an incident to happen in the next year. It will be either legal or political and it could involve Congress.
Money is behind it, the $13 million doled out to the elite conferences each bowl season, but that isn't all. It's a matter of access and fairness.
I loved the quote by lifetime Ute and medical professional now rookie president at BYU, Dr. Cecil Samuelson as quoted in the San Diego Union-Tribune: "The traditions of our country, the tradition of our society, the tradition of higher education are predicated on fairness and equal opportunity for everybody. For me, as the new kid on the block, the BCS may be a little of an aberration." Yeah, like un-American.
Sure, the BCS conferences have every right to sell their souls for greenbacks. But what's Vanderbilt done for football lately? See, it's not all about offering diamonds.
MWC presidents got it firsthand when they invited NCAA president Myles Brand to their shindig. Brand told the MWC presidents, "Geez, fellas, this BCS stuff may give you all wedgies, but there's nothing the NCAA's going to do about postseason bowl play — even if we, (hypocrisy alert) the NCAA, actually sanction and approve all postseason bowls and all NCAA championships."
Huh?
Understand here that Brand was appointed to head the NCAA by the some 60 university presidents that are in the elite BCS. He is a wire-stringed puppet elected to represent all university athletic programs.
Right.
Even sicker was the recent appointment of a six-member NCAA committee to study the BCS and outsider issues and concerns. Get this: All six members of the committee represent BCS schools. There isn't a token outsider in the lot.
Where's the Rainbow Coalition and Jessie Jackson? That's like former Attorney General Bobby Kennedy appointing lieutenants of six mob families to examine problems with godfathers and the secret oath.
MWC presidents got a belly full of it to be sure.
I'm telling you, folks, this baby's about to implode.
The BCS guys have every right to get all the dough they want — but they build records, TV value and program reputations on playing three or four of the non-BCS outsiders each year. It's sort of being partner in a Mike Tyson date.
UNLV president Carol Harter said the MWC response to their presidential colleagues will be more aggressive, and you can believe more political. The gauntlet is down.
Said Samuelson: "We'd like to be able to say to everybody at BYU: 'If you're willing to pay the price and you're good enough, the sky is the limit.' And what really happens now with football is we say, 'Well, you know, do the very best you can; then you can be the best of the also-rans.'"
MWC meetings? To heck with the MWC's someday expansion. I loved the political scene brewing in the backroom caldrons.
It's great to see MWC presidents attempting to stop their spinning heads as a result of turning the other cheek. It's Scot William Wallace against English King Longshanks and his inbreeds. This time Longshanks won't kill Bill.
Stay tuned, it's going to get fun.
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com