Mountain West potentially doing away with divisions in football

slcagg · Post by **slcagg** » May 22nd, 2022, 1:08 pm

nvspuds wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 12:06 pm
Actually, spreading out too thin with schools that had little to no common history caused the airport meeting.

There is absolutely no reason for the MW to have football divisions and apparently all the schools voted to do away with it..

There will still be 8 conference games and for some ,absolutely pointless reason, a CCG so this isn't going to be all that different..

I can think of a reason why the conference does a conference championship game. $$$

Btw spuds where does usu fall in your mind of conference rivals for you?

I consider the Nevada basketball rivalry/game one of my favorite for the Aggies.

USU78 · Post by **USU78** » May 22nd, 2022, 2:18 pm

Breaking up the AFA, yBu, CSU, Utah, Wyoming partnership in creating the WAC16 pods led to the meeting.

Stucki · Post by **Stucki** » May 22nd, 2022, 3:59 pm

This is true, but those pods made it so those teams wouldn't see each other for years in football. This scheduling method is designed to make sure that every school sees every school in a short period of time. I think you will see something similar in every conference moving forward.

nvspuds · Post by **nvspuds** » May 23rd, 2022, 12:52 am

slcagg wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 1:08 pm

nvspuds wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 12:06 pm
Actually, spreading out too thin with schools that had little to no common history caused the airport meeting.

There is absolutely no reason for the MW to have football divisions and apparently all the schools voted to do away with it..

There will still be 8 conference games and for some ,absolutely pointless reason, a CCG so this isn't going to be all that different..
I can think of a reason why the conference does a conference championship game. $$$

Btw spuds where does usu fall in your mind of conference rivals for you?

I consider the Nevada basketball rivalry/game one of my favorite for the Aggies.

I would say not much of a rivalry in football. Haven't played that often lately..

Basketball is a pretty good rivalry when both teams are good at the same time ..The 20 game schedule means at least two games a year..

OKAggie · Post by **OKAggie** » May 23rd, 2022, 7:12 am

ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 7:31 am
It’s Boise and Nevada

This sucks. Our division was my favorite part about the mountain west.

If this is true, you can suss out what the other pods would be, based on geography; if you draw a circle around your pod, it won't cross the lines of another pod. I'm also guessing.

Wyo/CSU/AFA (no-brainer), which leaves UNM, the southernmost Mountain Division team, paired with their southern compadres UNLV and SDSU, leaving FSU/SJSU/UH as the fourth pod.

Which would make the USU/BSU/UN pod the strongest of the four, followed by UW/CSU/AFA, FSU/SJSU/UH, with SDSU/UNM/UNLV bringing up the rear.

AGGIEinIOWA · Post by **AGGIEinIOWA** » May 23rd, 2022, 7:38 am

OKAggie wrote:
ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 7:31 am
It’s Boise and Nevada

This sucks. Our division was my favorite part about the mountain west.
If this is true, you can suss out what the other pods would be, based on geography; if you draw a circle around your pod, it won't cross the lines of another pod. I'm also guessing.

Wyo/CSU/AFA (no-brainer), which leaves UNM, the southernmost Mountain Division team, paired with their southern compadres UNLV and SDSU, leaving FSU/SDSU/UH as the fourth pod.

Which would make the USU/BSU/UN pod the strongest of the four, followed by UW/CSU/AFA, FSU/SDSU/UH, with SDSU/UNM/UNLV bringing up the rear.

Which of those SDSU’s is supposed to be SJSU? I assume SJSU would be in with FSU and UH.
These pods would definitely give SDSU an advantage, at least at the moment as UNLV and UNM are historically bad.

OKAggie · Post by **OKAggie** » May 23rd, 2022, 7:51 am

AGGIEinIOWA wrote: ↑
May 23rd, 2022, 7:38 am

OKAggie wrote:
ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 7:31 am
It’s Boise and Nevada

This sucks. Our division was my favorite part about the mountain west.
If this is true, you can suss out what the other pods would be, based on geography; if you draw a circle around your pod, it won't cross the lines of another pod. I'm also guessing.

Wyo/CSU/AFA (no-brainer), which leaves UNM, the southernmost Mountain Division team, paired with their southern compadres UNLV and SDSU, leaving FSU/SDSU/UH as the fourth pod.

Which would make the USU/BSU/UN pod the strongest of the four, followed by UW/CSU/AFA, FSU/SDSU/UH, with SDSU/UNM/UNLV bringing up the rear.
Which of those SDSU’s is supposed to be SJSU? I assume SJSU would be in with FSU and UH.
These pods would definitely give SDSU an advantage, at least at the moment as UNLV and UNM are historically bad.

Correct, fixed the post. Thanks for pointing that out.

AGGIEinIOWA · Post by **AGGIEinIOWA** » May 23rd, 2022, 8:52 am

I would propose that instead of pods, which are just mini-divisions and don’t necessarily protect some great historic rivalries, that the conference just protect (or create if needed) 3 rivalries for each team.
- Games in Bold are current “trophy games”
- Games not in Bold are newly created rivalries, many of which are already rivalries but just don't have trophies.
- The games after the dash are current trophy games but wouldn't be an annually protected game in this proposal.

USU: WY, BSU, CSU
BSU: NV, USU, HI - FSU
WY: CSU, USU, AF - HI
CSU: WY, AF, USU
AF: CSU, WY, NM
NM: AF, UNLV, NV
NV: BSU, UNLV, NM
UNLV: NV, SDSU, NM
HI: FSU, SJSU, BSU - AF, WY
SJSU: FSU, SDSU, HI
FSU: SDSU, SJSU, HI - BSU
SDSU: FSU, SJSU, UNLV

I think this is pretty good to be honest. The only tricky part is that UNM currently has no trophy games within the conference and Hawaii and Fresno have 4 trophy games so some can’t be annually played, which is ok since some of them haven’t been annual games since the conference went to divisions in 2013 anyway.

ncs53 · Post by **ncs53** » May 23rd, 2022, 10:21 am

Two permanent rivals seems to work the best. Then you can split up the nine remaining teams into groups of three that you play twice in three years. I imagine it would look similar to this:

AGGIEinIOWA · Post by **AGGIEinIOWA** » May 23rd, 2022, 11:07 am

ncs53 wrote:Two permanent rivals seems to work the best. Then you can split up the nine remaining teams into groups of three that you play twice in three years. I imagine it would look similar to this:

Yeah I like your model as well. We’d still get to play every team 2 out of 3 years. I’m just worried who the conference would establish as our 2 permanent rivals. I’d hope WY and then either BSU or CSU (in that order of preference) for the second. I’m just afraid we’ll get stuck with someone else. The nice thing about 3 permanent rivals is a better opportunity to establish 3 high attendance games each year, especially since BYU and Utah aren’t on our schedule. Boise game is usually a sellout and I think WY and CSU are both games and rivalries that could be established that would bring the casual fans. I hate to not have any of those 3 teams on the schedule on a given year.

tysteve20 · Post by **tysteve20** » May 23rd, 2022, 2:01 pm

For anyone curious like I was, this is how The championship game would have differed without divisions.

I may have gotten some time breakers wrong (2016) But for the most part still seems like the two best teams make the championship.

ManitobaAggie · Post by **ManitobaAggie** » May 24th, 2022, 7:22 am

OKAggie wrote: ↑
May 23rd, 2022, 7:12 am

ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 7:31 am
It’s Boise and Nevada

This sucks. Our division was my favorite part about the mountain west.
If this is true, you can suss out what the other pods would be, based on geography; if you draw a circle around your pod, it won't cross the lines of another pod. I'm also guessing.

Wyo/CSU/AFA (no-brainer), which leaves UNM, the southernmost Mountain Division team, paired with their southern compadres UNLV and SDSU, leaving FSU/SJSU/UH as the fourth pod.

Which would make the USU/BSU/UN pod the strongest of the four, followed by UW/CSU/AFA, FSU/SJSU/UH, with SDSU/UNM/UNLV bringing up the rear.

Bingo!

ManitobaAggie · Post by **ManitobaAggie** » May 24th, 2022, 7:26 am

ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 24th, 2022, 7:22 am

OKAggie wrote: ↑
May 23rd, 2022, 7:12 am

ManitobaAggie wrote: ↑
May 22nd, 2022, 7:31 am
It’s Boise and Nevada

This sucks. Our division was my favorite part about the mountain west.
If this is true, you can suss out what the other pods would be, based on geography; if you draw a circle around your pod, it won't cross the lines of another pod. I'm also guessing.

Wyo/CSU/AFA (no-brainer), which leaves UNM, the southernmost Mountain Division team, paired with their southern compadres UNLV and SDSU, leaving FSU/SJSU/UH as the fourth pod.

Which would make the USU/BSU/UN pod the strongest of the four, followed by UW/CSU/AFA, FSU/SJSU/UH, with SDSU/UNM/UNLV bringing up the rear.
This is the common sense way of breaking it up.

NavyBlueAggie · Post by **NavyBlueAggie** » May 24th, 2022, 9:26 am

AGGIEinIOWA wrote: ↑
May 23rd, 2022, 11:07 am

ncs53 wrote:Two permanent rivals seems to work the best. Then you can split up the nine remaining teams into groups of three that you play twice in three years. I imagine it would look similar to this:

Yeah I like your model as well. We’d still get to play every team 2 out of 3 years. I’m just worried who the conference would establish as our 2 permanent rivals. I’d hope WY and then either BSU or CSU (in that order of preference) for the second. I’m just afraid we’ll get stuck with someone else. The nice thing about 3 permanent rivals is a better opportunity to establish 3 high attendance games each year, especially since BYU and Utah aren’t on our schedule. Boise game is usually a sellout and I think WY and CSU are both games and rivalries that could be established that would bring the casual fans. I hate to not have any of those 3 teams on the schedule on a given year.

Good ideas are being discussed here. I would hope these thoughts make it back to the MWC decision making circle's. Thank you both for your insight.

3rdGenAggie · Post by **3rdGenAggie** » May 24th, 2022, 9:34 am

I'd be good having Nevada on the schedule every year; they're easily in the top half of most interesting conference opponents for me. However, I would be bummed to miss out on Wyo and CSU in some years, but it wouldn't be too bad if we still played 2/3 years.

I love the idea of avoiding Air Force as often as we can, though. Let's keep our boys' knees intact.

nvspuds · Post by **nvspuds** » May 24th, 2022, 9:41 am

I don't know what is in the works but I am not keen on the idea of pods..That is just smaller divisions..The thing they are trying to eliminate.

I think it works best to look at the conference as one whole unit..

However, I suspect there are agendas afoot and lots of palace intrigue..

The members voted to do this so who knows...Is it 12 individual schools or a unit?

thegreendalegelf · Post by **thegreendalegelf** » May 24th, 2022, 10:37 am

As I think about it more I have a few teams that I feel confident I KNOW who their two rivals will be.

Nevada - Boise and UNLV
CSU - Wyoming and Air Force
Wyoming: CSU and USU
Fresno - SDSU and SJSU

Other than that I think it is pretty fluid. Here is what I think the matchups will be (* means locked):

Air Force: CSU* and New Mexico
USU: Wyoming* and Boise
Boise: Nevada* and USU
New Mexico: Air Force and UNLV
UNLV: Nevada* and New Mexico
SDSU: Fresno* and Hawaii
SJSU: Fresno* and Hawaii
Hawaii: SDSU and SJSU

As I played with it, I feel really confident in these answers.

nvspuds · Post by **nvspuds** » May 24th, 2022, 10:51 am

I am not at all certain that Boise even wants NV..The Broncos recruit California. If the MW decides to do a pod thing, getting guaranteed games every year in Cali will be the goal of almost every school..

AGGIEinIOWA · Post by **AGGIEinIOWA** » May 24th, 2022, 12:25 pm

nvspuds wrote: ↑
May 24th, 2022, 10:51 am
I am not at all certain that Boise even wants NV..The Broncos recruit California. If the MW decides to do a pod thing, getting guaranteed games every year in Cali will be the goal of almost every school..

With 3 California schools in the conference I think it's possible to work the schedule rotation so every team in the conference has at least one Cali game nearly every year. This should be helpful for the mountain division teams, as will more frequent trips to Hawaii for teams like USU who recruit the islands.

dirtnsnow · Post by **dirtnsnow** » May 24th, 2022, 12:27 pm

AGGIEinIOWA wrote: ↑
May 24th, 2022, 12:25 pm

nvspuds wrote: ↑
May 24th, 2022, 10:51 am
I am not at all certain that Boise even wants NV..The Broncos recruit California. If the MW decides to do a pod thing, getting guaranteed games every year in Cali will be the goal of almost every school..
With 3 California schools in the conference I think it's possible to work the schedule rotation so every team in the conference has at least one Cali game nearly every year. This should be helpful for the mountain division teams, as will more frequent trips to Hawaii for teams like USU who recruit the islands.

I'd prefer to see Boise only play one Cali team a year, and it be in Idaho.

ViAggie · Post by **ViAggie** » May 24th, 2022, 2:43 pm

I agree with Wyo/Boise as our +2's. I agree that we need to play at least one Cal school per year, two preferable alternating home and away, this will help with recruiting.

Kevincurtisforlife · Post by **Kevincurtisforlife** » June 27th, 2022, 9:10 pm

Aggie84025 wrote: ↑
May 21st, 2022, 9:11 pm

He also mentioned we should know the new opponent for the BYU replacement in 2-4 weeks. He seemed pretty excited about the options for the replacement.

So the opponent should be known by now. Just crossing the Ts and dotting the Is before it can be announced? Any rumblings on who it is?

Aggie84025 · Post by **Aggie84025** » June 27th, 2022, 9:38 pm

Kevincurtisforlife wrote: ↑
June 27th, 2022, 9:10 pm

Aggie84025 wrote: ↑
May 21st, 2022, 9:11 pm

He also mentioned we should know the new opponent for the BYU replacement in 2-4 weeks. He seemed pretty excited about the options for the replacement.
So the opponent should be known by now. Just crossing the Ts and dotting the Is before it can be announced? Any rumblings on who it is?

Yeah based on what he said in the interview it should have been announced by now. Not sure if they hit some snags or what happened. I am not in the know. USU fans is source of information most of the time.

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