Not much will change in Mountain West because of realignment

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — In the span of a few days earlier this month, the Mountain West Conference went from entertaining the notion of expanding to 12 schools to bracing for the possibility of losing several and immediately becoming irrelevant.

Instead, the expected seismic shift of the college athletics landscape ended up being a mere tremor. Just four schools changed leagues, with the MWC adding one (Boise State) and losing one (Utah).

MWC commissioner Craig Thompson, who on Tuesday called the approximately two weeks of heavy speculation regarding conference realignment "probably the most arduous and difficult" time in his 32 years in college athletics administration, said he thinks it's a good thing there was not a major shake-up of college conferences.

"I'm glad that only four institutions changed places at the end of the day for this simple reason: I don't think as administrators we did a great enough job worrying about the greater good in the long term," Thompson said at the annual Colorado Springs Sports Corporation's Football Kickoff Luncheon at the Colorado Springs Marriott. "We were throwing geography out the window. We were throwing out historical rivalries. We were throwing out series that had been played for the better part of a century. For what reason? ... Because we're so consumed with the commercial aspect, the corporate aspect, the dollar, revenue-generation aspect."

For the MWC, losing Utah and adding Boise State (both moves will occur before the start of the 2011-12 school year) results almost in a wash — at least when it comes to football. While the Utes were one of the league's top teams, Boise State has gone 26-1 during the past two seasons.

"I think in a lot of ways it's very, very close — especially in our sport," Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun said. "You're going to see some differences in other sports."

"I'm very optimistic about the future," Thompson said. "Boise State's as good a football program as there is right now, and as I said, this is about football and television revenue."

The one-for-one swap will be far easier logistically for the league than expanding to 12 teams. Thompson said Tuesday that "there's a very high probability" that for football scheduling the league will just sub Boise for Utah. So, in other words, the teams that were to play at Utah in 2011 (like Air Force) will play at Boise State. And the teams that were slated to play host to Utah in 2011 instead will play host to Boise State.