The biggest payoff for the Utes should be in TV revenue. For the 2008-09 year the Utes reported just $1.2 million in TV revenue from the MWC. Teams in the Pac-10 make $8-10 million. A new TV agreement is expected to increase that amount.
Following the Utah press conference, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson is holding a teleconference at 2pm (mst) where he most likely will discuss Utah leaving the Mountain West.
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Idaho's schedule seems pretty fitting for their caliber of a team, they feature North Dakota, Nebraska, UNLV, Colorado State and Western Michigan. Nebraska is going to be a tough battle, but that is really only the tough test for this team. Conference Play isn't that hard either, with only three opponents in conference having a winning record last season.
Losing McCoy to the NFL is a big blow as well as his favorite target Jordan Shipley, but the biggest blow could be the three offensive lineman that have moved on. A reconstructed offensive line will make the running game tougher to get off the ground which has suffered the past where Colt McCoy was their leading rusher.
The expected lead back is Tre' Newton who was the teams leading returning runner and managed only 552 yards with six touchdowns, or the other is touchdown machine Cody Johnson who had 12 to go along with 335 yards. The running game is a real issue, but head coach Mack Brown is expected to return to a more running offense instead of a shotgun passing offense. That could help the running game be better by focusing it, possibly.
]]>WR Reggie Dunn out of Compton C.C. committed to Oregon State in 2007, but is now heading to Utah after the Beavers grew tired of his academic issues. He was listed at a four-star WR by Scout and Rivals. Scout ranked him the 48th best receiver coming out of high school and Rivals ranked him No. 28.
The 5'10" 185 pound speedy running back ran an official 4.35 forty at a Nike Camp in Los Angeles where he took top honors. He also runs a 4.28 at the USC camp.
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For this first type of schedule, I give credit to pappyman (a member here at Mountain West Connection) for coming up with this idea.
This first schedule type is for if the MWC expands and adds only Boise St. to make 10 schools. This scheduling type is based off of the chance of the NCAA Bylaw that states you must have 12 teams and 2 divisions in order to have a championship game gets changed. The Pac-10 is currently pushing for this to happen, and if it does, it makes the schedule type viable. The idea is we have two divisions with 5 teams in each:
| Mountain Division | Western Division |
| Air Force | Boise St. |
| BYU | New Mexico |
| Colorado State | San Diego St. |
| Utah | TCU |
| Wyoming | UNLV |
Each team would play every team in it's division once and play four out of the five teams from the other division each year. The team that they miss each year would rotate, and the winners of each division would play the MWC Championship game one week after the regular season ends. So for instance, Boise St's first conference schedule in the MWC might look like this:
| Opponent |
| Utah |
| UNLV |
| Wyoming |
| New Mexico |
| TCU |
| San Diego St. |
| BYU |
| Air Force |
This kind of schedule satisfies a lot of issues with the new schedule. For one, schools might be concerned with a true round robin of 9 conference games a season, especially Air Force who would only have one non-conference game a year to schedule because they play Navy and Army every year. With only having 8 conference games, the big teams would only miss out on each other twice every five years.
Another issue is that if we were to expand to 12 teams and move to a Big 12 style schedule, or not created divisions with the 10 teams but still gone with an 8 game conference schedule, the big rivalries would not have stayed intact. For instance, the annual Border War, BYU-Utah game and CSU-Air Force game would have been canceled for a few years under the Big 12 style schedule and would disappear once every nine years under the 8 game conference schedule with out divisions. By putting in divisions and purposely keeping rivalries intact in the divisions, you do not have to worry about that.
One of the main problems with a true round robin was that since the all the top 25 teams would be pitted against each other, more losses happen and worse BCS rankings come about hurting our chances at a BCS Automatic Qualification. This issue could also be solved if for the first season with Boise St. in, each of the top 25 teams are purposely made to miss a game with the one of the other top 25 teams in the other division. If this happens, then we would get better BCS Rankings just for the year that we need them in order to get a BCS AQ.
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| Head Coach | Bret Bielma |
| Record | 10-3 (5-3) |
| Bowl Game | 20-14 win over Miami |
Returning Starters for Wisconsin:
| Side of the ball | Position | Player Name |
| Offense | Running Back | John Clay |
| Offense | Wide Receiver | David Gilreath |
| Offense | Wide Receiver | Isaac Anderson |
| Offense | Tight End | Jake Byrne |
| Offense | Left Tackle | Gabe Carimi |
| Offense | Left Guard | Jake Bscherer |
| Offense | Center | John Moffitt |
| Offense | Right Guard | Bill Nagy |
| Offense | Right Tackle | Josh Oglesby |
| Defense | Defensive End | J.J. Watt |
| Defense | Linebacker | Culmer St. Jean |
| Defense | Linebacker | Blake Sorensen |
| Defense | Cornerback | Aaron Henry |
| Defense | Safety | Jay Valai |
| Defense | Cornerback | Niles Brinkley |
This team lost a lot of talent after last season, but they still are ranked sixth in Lindley's Pre-Season top 25. It's because this team was so deep last season, that even though so much talent has left, so much talent steps in for the remaining open positions. For instance, at Tight End, Wisconsin lost star Garrett Graham who was First-team All-Big Ten. They have Lance Kendricks taking over the starting role and Wisconsin shouldn't lose anything at that position because of the caliber player that Kendricks is. Wisconsin shouldn't have any issues with departing players this upcoming season.
The one thing you have to wonder about this team is why they play a cupcake non-conference schedule that includes UNLV, San Jose State, Arizona State and Austin Peay? If they're such a good football team, why didn't they play Auburn or Cincinnatti? This team has a lot of talent, but you won't see any showcase games until conference play starts, and the first four weeks of conference play look pretty tough. Overall, I really don't think Wisconsin plays a good schedule. For a team of their caliber, They should play around six marquee games, not the four marquee conference games they have on the schedule for this year.
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Football power Boise State appears to be only waiting for an invitation to become the 10th member of the Mountain West Conference. That invitation could officially come as early as Monday when the MWC's board of directors meets in Jackson, Wyo.
Speculation around the MWC and the Western Athletic Conference is that Boise State will bolt from the WAC. Typical is the comment by Idaho athletic director Rob Spear, who recently wrote to Vandals fans in his blog, "I am predicting June 7 will be the day when the first shoe drops regarding conference realignment."
There was an idea that some of the bottom schools would vote against adding Boise State, because it would make it even more difficult for those lesser teams to move up the chain. My argument against that is that by adding Boise State would be the extra $18-$22 million the league would get as well as the uptick in recruiting for being a BCS league. A prime example would be Cincinnati who joined the Big East in 2005 from C-USA and won the Big East in 2008 and 2009.
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The Beavers have had some legal troubles with some players stealing a golf cart and then crashing it. Other legal issues for the Beavers was with quarterback Peter Lalich received a boating DUI while in Shasta, California. That was his third alcohol related offense, and that lead to Lalich getting removed from Oregon State. Prior to arriving in Corvallis, Lalich was booted from Virginia for alcohol related offense.
]]>Position: Offensive Tackle
Height/Weight: 6'6''/278
High School: Hurricane High in Hurricane, Utah
Offers: Utah
Date Committed: February 19, 2010
Recruiting Profiles: Rivals, ESPN, MaxPreps
Utah's fourth pledge in the 2011 class was an in-state offensive lineman from 3A Hurricane with great size and potential. He is Utah's second offensive lineman commit for 2011 along side Isaac Asiata.
Nielson looks to develop into a big, strong tackle with his great height of 6'6". He is considered one of the best lineman prospects in the state of Utah. The big kid can also move. According to his recruiting profile he runs a 4.9 forty.
Daniel Nielson played on both sides of the trenches in high school and recorded 31 tackles in the 12 games as a DT in 2009. His Hurricane team lost the state championship to Juan Diego on a last second Hail Mary.
]]>The rumor most recently was that the Big XII and Pac-10 would combine their forces for a huge television conference. With a new television deal in the works it was safe to assume that the Pac-10 would not expand (so, I guess disregard my comments on the Todd Wright show from last night that said otherwise). After having a few hours to digest this possibility it makes sense for the Pac-10 to make this move, because both leagues have deals with Fox Sports and it becomes much easier to negotiate with one league then try to make two leagues with a combined 22 teams happy.
The main sticking point with Pac-10 expansion is that a unanimous vote is needed for expansion, and the last time the Pac-10 tried to get Texas it was Stanford who said no. This time a 10-0 vote would be likely since the divisions would bring back the old Pac-8 and would allow the original members to be in southern California every year by keeping UCLA and USC on the schedule; that was the sticking point within the league on who to invite. The divisions would then look like this:
West:
USC
UCLA
California
Stanford
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
East:
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Texas Tech
Texas
Texas A&M
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
"It's important to remember that the BCS would not exist without the AQ conferences and schools; they have sowed for decades and now everyone is reaping. College football has the most compelling regular season of any sport. It has a unique bowl system that benefits thousands of students and fans every year. I don't know why anyone would want to monkey with either of those."
I totally agree with the first statement that the current BCS conferences made the BCS and bring the fans which means more money for these bowl games that are in the business of making money. Yes, the college football season has the best regular season because there are a so few games, but the bowl system is a joke. These bowl games are exhibitions and some schools lose money in these games if they do not sell all of their tickets.
All of the bowl games are a business and are in the business of making money which is why the International Bowl in Toronto folded after a few short years. A lot of these people who are in charge of these bowl games get six figure salaries to put on a party that concludes with hopefully a good game. That money is why these bowls do not want a playoff because their cushy job will be in trouble.
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First off, here are the reasons the Pac-10 will not expand: The Pac-10 has a unanimous vote rule in order to expand, that means one no vote and expansion doesn't happen. The most probable school to do this would be Stanford. Of the 10 schools in the Pac-10, only two schools are in the green, USC and Stanford. The reason that the Pac-10 is because the schools and league as a whole is gripping for cash. Adding Utah and Colorado would bring a championship game and much more cash, so for every other school except the Pac-10, that makes sense. Another reason Stanford would no-vote is because if Utah and Colorado were annexed, it would split the divisions in two. That means that they don't have a for sure yearly game against USC. Every school wants its game against USC because it always is a sellout and you have a pretty good chance of getting on TV. With the two divisions, you would no longer have that game guaranteed. The Pac-10 also is currently looking for every other way to make cash other than expansion. The Pac-10 is attempting to change an NCAA Bylaw that states you must have 12 teams and 2 divisions in order to have a championship game. If that bylaw gets changed, than there is absolutely no reason to expand any more because it would just mean more hands in the pot. The Pac-10 has also been said to be talking about creating the Pac-10 Network. Along with that, they are currently in negotiations with the Big 12 in combining TV Deals. If the Pac-10 were to combine TV deals with the Big 12, their TV Revenue would double and kill any Pac-10 Expansion rumors. Another Reason is that the Pac-10 doesn't have as many good expansion candidates as the Big 10 does. The Pac-10's only viable candidates are Utah and Colorado. The Big 10 has seven good candidates for expasion. Since the Pac-10 doesn't have as many good candidates, some schools might be reluctant to expand.
Everyone remembers the Jake Locker celebration incident when BYU blocked an extra long extra point attempt to win a road game in Washington. That was about as close to a win Washington came that season as they went 0-11. This season Washington will certainly be much, much better.
To predict how good Washington will be you have to start with the nightmare 2008 season. After going winless the Huskies hire USC coordinator and former BYU player, Steve Sarkisian. In Sarkisian's first season Washington went 5-7 with victories over USC and Cal. Not great, but a huge improvement from the previous season.
]]>Knox is a former four star recruit who chose UCLA over Florida and Notre Dame. After being buried on a depth chart full of talent at running back, Knox looks to play elsewhere where he will get more playing time.
Knox red-shirted in 2008, and played sparingly in 2009 where he rushed for 134 yards on 29 attempts. He also had two receptions for 25 yards.
This poses a great situation for Utah. Knox is very talented and has a bit of experience. He can join the Utes now, sit out his mandatory year and play his junior and senior seasons at Utah.
Following this season, Utah will be losing quite a bit of running back depth. Matt Asiata and Eddie Wide are both in their final years at Utah. The Utes will have a void there. They return Shakerin who's future looks promising, but no other returners have experience including Beau Burton and a few incoming Freshman.
Knox would be competing with Sausan Shakerin for the starting job, who will also be a Junior in 2011. They could make a great duo of power running in Shakerin and a more elusive running style in Knox, if Whittingham elects to use them that way.
UCLA Sophomore RB Milton Knox announced he'd like to transfer from the Bruins' crowded backfield and is looking at Utah and Fresno State according to The Los Angeles Times and Daily News.
Knox is a former four star recruit who chose UCLA over Florida and Notre Dame. After being buried on a depth chart full of talent at running back, Knox looks to play elsewhere where he will get more playing time.
Knox red-shirted in 2008, and played sparingly in 2009 where he rushed for 134 yards on 29 attempts. He also had two receptions for 25 yards.
This poses a great situation for Utah. Knox is very talented and has a bit of experience. He can join the Utes now, sit out his mandatory year and play his junior and senior seasons at Utah.
Following this season, Utah will be losing quite a bit of running back depth. Matt Asiata and Eddie Wide are both in their final years at Utah. The Utes will have a void there. They return Shakerin who's future looks promising, but no other returners have experience including Beau Burton and a few incoming Freshman.
Knox would be competing with Sausan Shakerin for the starting job, who will also be a Junior in 2011. They could make a great duo of power running in Shakerin and a more elusive running style in Knox, if Whittingham elects to use them that way.
]]>There has been some serious talk within the blog talking about how way off base the Orlando Sentinel's college football countdowns are. Look no further then to Pre-Snap Read which is run by Peter Meyerberg of the New York Times and their Quad Blog writer. Meyerberg has his own countdown which seems more accurate then the Sentinel's countdown.
Below is his countdown which has only New Mexico in the first 22 spots. Compare that to the Sentinel who has Wyoming, UNLV, New Mexico, and Colorado State in their bottom 20 spots.
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