Mountain West Conference teams are winning big games

A red-letter day is commonly known as a day of special significance, so you could certainly say Saturday was one of those days for the Mountain West Conference.

And for the fans of BYU, Air Force and TCU who might be uncomfortable with that designation, you could call it a blue-letter or purple-letter day as well.

The oft-maligned and disrespected MWC enjoyed perhaps the finest overall foot- ball day in its 10-year history Saturday. The league went 7-1 overall, including four victories over Pac-10 schools. Only San Diego State spoiled things with a loss to San Jose State.

BYU's 59-0 thrashing of UCLA was astonishing because of the way the Cougars manhandled the Bruins in every which way in handing the SoCal boys their worst loss in 79 years.

Utah's victory over Utah State was expected but impressive in the fact that it was the largest margin of victory in the 108-year series and the most points ever scored by one team in the rivalry.

TCU shut out Stanford in the second half of a 31-14 victory, Air Force went on the road and beat Houston and New Mexico held off unbeaten, 11-point favorite Arizona by eight.

The most impressive MWC victory, however, was UNLV's 23-20 late-night overtime victory over Arizona State.

The Sun Devils came into the game as 25-point favorites and were ranked No. 15 in the nation. There was already talk in Tempe about a BCS Championship Bowl game, particularly since No. 2-ranked Georgia was coming to town the following week. But the Rebels came back from a 10-point deficit to spoil the Sun Devils' season.

The Pac-10 has generally been considered the second-best conference in America in recent years behind the SEC, thanks in large part to the success of USC. However, the MWC is now 5-0 against the Pac-10 this season with a couple of more games remaining (Colorado State at Cal, Oregon State at Utah).

To date, the MWC is 15-5 as a league in non-conference games and well on its way to topping last year's 24-16 mark as well as the 22-13 record in its inaugural season of 1999.

While the MWC isn't on par with the SEC (5 teams in the top 10), Big 12 (5 teams in the top 20) or Big 10 (4 teams in the Top 25), it is creeping up on the other BCS conferences.

Outside of No. 1 USC, the Pac-10 has just one other ranked team. And, with BYU ranked 11th and 14th in the two polls, Utah at No. 20 and TCU just outside the Top 25, the MWC is looking better than both the Big East (two ranked teams) and ACC (Wake Forest the highest of three ranked teams at No. 18).

With 16 non-league contests remaining, the MWC will likely be prohibitive underdogs in just three games — CSU at Cal and TCU at Oklahoma on Sept. 27, and Wyoming at Tennessee on Nov. 8.