From the person who told you the Mountain West Conference "stinks" last week, here's some good news about the league.

According to the first BCS standings of the season, the MWC is the fifth-best conference in America. At least among its top teams.

With TCU at 8, BYU at 16 and Utah at 18, the Mountain West has more teams in the top 18, with three, than the Big 12 (two), the Big 10 (two), the Pac-10 (two) and the Big East (one).

If you give points in reverse order to the top 25 in the BCS poll (25 for first, on down to 1 for 25th) the MWC stands fifth among the conferences, barely behind the Pac-10, but ahead of the Big 12 and Big East.

The SEC is far and away No. 1 with 68 points using this method, followed by the Big 10 with 45, the ACC with 42, the Pac-10 with 38, the MWC with 36, the Big 12 with 35 and the Big East with 30.

So the top three MWC schools seem to fit in quite well with top teams from the other top leagues. But I still say the rest of the league is quite dreadful.

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SMARTER THAN A COACH?: If you follow the college football rankings each week, you'd have to come to the same conclusion as I do, that sportswriters are smarter than football coaches.

It's obvious isn't it? You can tell by the rankings every week that the sportswriters and sportscasters who vote on the Associated Press poll are more in tune with college football than the coaches who vote.

When you look at the two polls each week, it seems like the A.P. poll is the one that makes the most sense. For instance, this week, Alabama leapfrogged Florida for the No. 1 spot.

But Florida was No. 1 last week and won its game this week and shouldn't be penalized, you say.

However, I say you compare teams each week, while incorporating what the teams have done previously in the year. And last week the Crimson Tide looked better than Florida in defeating a ranked South Carolina team by two touchdowns that Florida did in sneaking by an unranked Arkansas team.

The media gave Alabama 39 first-place votes compared to 20 for Florida, while the coaches were overwhelming in favor of Florida, giving the Gators 49 of 60 first-place votes.

The media also wasn't afraid to put Cincinnati, which has been impressive the last couple of weeks, ahead of Boise State, which struggled against UC-Davis and barely beat Tulsa last week.

Maybe the media just pays more attention to all the games and studies it out more. Or perhaps we are just smarter.

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