WAC Profile

Cory McCartney of Sports Illustrated's Inside College Football writes an article entitled Welcome to the big time. The sub-heading for the article is WAC has become America's top mid-major conference. It's a great article about how the WAC, and two teams in particular, Boise and Hawaii, has risen in prominence. Some excerpts:

To appreciate the current state of the WAC one has to look at the conference's revolving door over the last eight years. In all, 24 different schools have been part of the conference and only three remain from that '99 breakup (Fresno State, Hawaii and San Jose State). The conference had to deal with losing its only real history in BYU, which delivered a national title in '84 and a Heisman winner, and TCU, which bolted for C-USA after nearly crashing the BCS party in '00. But the current nine-team lineup has a 32-24-2 bowl record, the highest winning percentage of the 11 Division I-A conferences based on their current membership.

Wow. And here's a quote from June Jones followed by a wrap-up.

"I think the last four or five years we have not been given the credit that was due," Jones said. "You can go back four or five years ago, just after the breakup, and look at the bowl wins versus the BCS teams, we've held our own. Because of Boise State's win over Oklahoma and Colt's presence in the national media, we're finally starting to get credit for what has happened."

Thanks to the hook-and-ladder, the QB-in-motion play, the Statue of Liberty and Brennan's onslaught on the record books, the WAC has our attention. But it's what the conference does with its newfound status that will decide whether it's ready to truly cement its place as the nation's premier mid-major conference.

Definitely read the whole article.