LAS VEGAS — Utah's impending move to the Pac-10 Conference hasn't made things uncomfortable for the Utes at Mountain West Conference Football Media Day.
"No elephant in the room. No sensation," said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham, who attended meetings with the league's eight other coaches on Monday. "Maybe there was but I was just oblivious to it. I didn't sense anything different."
Whittingham added that it was "business as usual" while noting that the MWC has a "great group of coaches." He also praised conference commissioner Craig Thompson for being "a great guy, very professional."
Utah associate athletic director Liz Abel, who heads the program's sports information department, hasn't experienced any negativity either. She also attended meetings with her colleagues at the Red Rock Resort.
"I would say that my peers in the profession have been really good to me and they've been very gracious. They all said congratulations and that they were really going to miss us," Abel said. "They thought our teams really added a lot to the conference and stuff like that. I've had several people come up to me and say they are definitely going to be Ute boosters because obviously the better we do the better the better the whole Mountain West Conference looks."
Although the sports information directors meeting was more quiet than Abel can ever remember it being, she couldn't say if Utah's move to the Pac-10 was the reason for it.
When the group went to dinner, however, Abel acknowledged feeling a bit sentimental about the whole thing.
"I've worked with so many of these people for many, many years and they are really good," she said.
Whittingham, though, has a different take on the situation.
"I'm not really a reminiscent guy, not sentimental or any of that stuff," he said. "It didn't even enter my mind because this year we are a part of it. We're in the Mountain West Conference."
As such, his focus is on the present and not the future
"We've got a challenging schedule ahead," Whittingham explained. "Next year will be different, obviously, but for right now there is nothing different than years past."
DIFFERENT 'POKES: Wyoming was the lone MWC team not to bring printed media guides to the gathering. Amidst the stacks of books, the Cowboys had their guide on computer disks.
Tim Harkins, associate athletics director for media relations, dismissed the notion that Wyoming had gone high tech. He explained that new NCAA rules, which require schools to put their media guides online in the same fashion as it appears in print, prompted the decision. To assist with recruiting, the Cowboys decided to do their book in color — a cost-prohibitive move if the guides were actually printed.
ON THE OTHER SIDE: Former BYU star Jan Jorgensen is experiencing the MWC media gathering from a different perspective. One year after attending as a player, he's now with the media — broadcasting for radio station 1280 The Zone.
"It's a little weird because when you're here as a player everybody is like trying to do everything for you and trying to pamper you," Jorgensen said while noting that media members are constantly being told to "hang on" for things. "So it's definitely a big role reversal. But it's fun."
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