(11-18-2020 09:43 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote: (11-18-2020 09:20 PM)esayem Wrote: The Mountain West was built from the ashes of the WAC 16 and they were naturally skeptical of over-expanding in those early years. Taking TCU wasn’t some on a whim decision. Plus, Boise State wasn’t going anywhere so they had luxury of time to see if they kept up the consistency.
It was formed to make a run at the BCS, CUSA for the same purposes.
Even the Big East was almost left out of the BCS. And the Big East had indisputably better performance than the MWC in most years, even if Boise had been added.
There's a couple years where adding Boise would have given the MWC an argument to being as good as the Big East, but it wasn't clear-cut.
Records vs FBS schools, plus final rankings in AP Polls:
2005:
Big East 14-16, #5, #19 in final AP poll, 3 teams ranked during season
MWC 14-17, #11 in final AP poll, 1 team ranked during season
Boise 1-3, unranked in final AP Poll
MWC + Boise 15-20
2006:
Big East 31-8, #6, #10, #12 in final AP poll, 3 teams ranked during season
MWC 15-19, #16, #22 in final AP Poll, 2 teams ranked during season
Boise 4-0, #5 in final AP Poll
MWC + Boise 17-19
2007
Big East 25-13, #6 & #17 in final AP poll, 6 teams ranked during season
MWC 19-17, #14 in final AP poll, 2 teams ranked during season
Boise 2-2, unranked in final AP poll
MWC + Boise 20-18
2008
Big East 26-14, #17 & #23 in final AP Poll, 5 teams ranked during season
MWC 22-13, #2, #7, #25 in final AP Poll, 3 teams ranked during season
Boise 3-1, #11 in final AP Poll
MWC + Boise 24-13
2009
Big East 26-10, #8, #15, #25 in final AP poll, 5 teams ranked during season
MWC 19-16, #6, #12, #18, 3 teams ranked during season
Boise 5-0, #4 in final AP Poll
MWC + Boise 23-15