TCU to Mountain West dosen't add up

By Nathan Hathaway

The Mountain West Conference has succeeded in turning itself into the Mountain East. And it’s succeeded in watering down the competition.

The conference has succeeded in making a bone-headed mistake.

The Mountain West Conference announced last Thursday that it had officially extended an invitation to Texas Christian University to become the conference’s ninth member. TCU, which accepted the invitation last Friday, is currently a member of Conference USA. The Horned Frogs will join the Mountain West for the 2005-06 athletic season.

The Mountain West’s eastern-most state right now is Colorado, where Air Force and Colorado State play. TCU is in Fort Worth. That’s in Texas. That’s about 1,000 miles east of the mountains. As a matter of fact, it’s directly south of the Great Plains, the least-mountainous area of the country.

And even the Mountain West schools which aren’t actually in the mountains—New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV—are at least west of the mountains (see name of conference).

The conference has also managed to pick up a school that will add nothing to its overall strength.

TCU had a stellar football season—11-2. Enough to earn them a spot among the nation’s top 25. But what seems to have slipped under the radar is that the Frogs cake-walked through an easy schedule. Their toughest game: the inaugural Fort Worth Bowl, which they lost 34-31 to Boise State. And for Pete’s sake, they were playing it at home.

And in basketball, TCU brings nothing to the conference. The Frogs are 8-11 on the season, which would put them around the middle of the pack in the MWC. Right now, they sit in tenth place in C-USA. Not exactly the type of team you want to play in your conference schedule to raise the ol’ RPI.

It may seem like a wacky—and totally unexpected—prediction to see in this column at this school in this town, but the Mountain West might have been smarter to take (surprise!!) Fresno State. Pat Hill is just the sort of gutsy, grind-it-out coach most conferences are looking for, and the type the Mountain West could really use. It also might be to the conference’s advantage to add a basketball team coming off a regular-season WAC title. One that plays in the Save Mart Center.

It also might serve to throw in the rivalry aspect (see Fresno State-BYU and Fresno State-San Diego State in football, and Fresno State-Utah in basketball). Those will fill up Bulldog Stadium and the SMC.

Plus, If you look at a map, Fresno’s at least west of the mountains.