Decade's best: Cougars, Utes each land 8 stars on 25-man squad

With the Mountain West Conference celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the league has invited fans, media and institutional personnel to vote for an all-decade football team. The results will be announced this week in conjunction with the MWC football meetings in Las Vegas.

But the Deseret News couldn't wait that long.

We decided to create our own all-decade team based on the opinions and observations of staff writers who have covered MWC football since its inception in 1999. Both BYU and Utah are well-represented on our team, and deservedly so. The Cougars and Utes have combined to win four of the last five league championships. Since the league opened for business, Utah has posted the best record overall among MWC teams (72-36) followed by BYU (68-43). In MWC games only, BYU boasts the best all-time mark (46-20) followed by Utah (42-24).

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that of the 25 positions on our all-decade team, 16 are Utes and Cougars. The two schools are split equally with eight players apiece, though that wasn't intentional (honest!).

In formulating our team, we followed similar criteria established by the MWC. Candidates must meet one of the following:

• First-team all-conference selection at least once in his MWC career.

• First-team All-America by a major/national sector as recognized and utilized by the NCAA for their consensus All-America during his MWC career.

Here's the Deseret News' version of the MWC all-decade team, with the year each player was named first-team All-MWC in parenthesis.

QUARTERBACK: Alex Smith, Utah (2004).

BYU is widely regarded as Quarterback U., but a former Ute gets the nod here. It's hard to argue, considering Smith led Utah to an undefeated season, a conference championship, a berth in the Fiesta Bowl (making the Utes the first non-BCS team to crash the BCS party), and a No. 4 final national ranking in 2004. Smith earned national player of the year honors from The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

Oh, and Smith was the top overall pick of the 2005 National Football League draft by the San Francisco 49ers.

Others considered (in alphabetical order): John Beck, BYU (2005, 2006); Brandon Doman, BYU (1999); Max Hall, BYU (2007); Mike Thiessen, Air Force (1999); Bradlee Van Pelt, Colorado State (2002, 2003).

RUNNING BACKS: Luke Staley, BYU (2001); DonTrell Moore, New Mexico (2002, 2003, 2004).

When healthy, Staley dominated the MWC. During that memorable 2001 season, he rushed for 1,582 yards and 28 touchdowns. Staley averaged 8.1 yards per rush en route to earning the Doak Walker Award, emblematic of the nation's top running back. Moore was a three-time All-MWC first-team selection and holds the MWC's career rushing record with 5,947 yards.

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