Utah to the Pac-10

It's official, Utah has joined the Pac-10. Or should we call it the Pac-12 now?

The rumors, projections, closed door meetings and dealings are over and the celebration has begun.

The University of Utah is officially part of the Pac-10. The move from the Mountain West Conference to the elite league was quickly approved Thursday by the unanimous vote of Utah's Board of Trustees in a public meeting at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

"This is an absolutely great day to be a Ute," said longtime Utah athletics director Chris Hill.

Even though the super conference idea with the Big 12 South is deader than Michael Jackson, the idea that the Pac-10 has added more schools makes me like the situation that the conference is in. It's at least good they were proactive with expansion instead of reactive like the Big-12 errrr.... Big 10 now.

They didn't get the prettiest girl at the prom, getting schools like Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State would have blown up the Pac-10 to epic proportions. It also wouldn't have made a whole lot of geographical sense but whatever. It would have been great to get those big schools and big money into the conference but WSU fans... you wouldn't have been competitive ever again.

Colorado and Utah make sense though. First you capture the Denver and Salt Lake City markets which gives you an even bigger stranglehold out west. You give the Arizona schools somebody closer to develop rilvaries with. You keep the "travel partner" system together and you can hope and pray that Colorado and Utah develop into bitter rivals.

(Can somebody go and defecate on a John Elway statue in Denver and then put a Utah Jazz jersey on it?)

This gives Utah a chance to show that they're a national program after getting snuffed by the BCS for years. It's a very underrated school and has both strong football and basketball programs. It's also not BYU... which is great.

Colorado was one of the weaker schools in the Big 12 but I think it will do better since the bottom half of the Pac-10 is a lot worse than the Big 12. 

Pac-10 fans might find the not becoming the Pac-16 might of been the best thing to happen to it.

Now if they could just fix those refs. Woof!

Should Big Sky Teams move up?

Huge news for college football, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Colorado is headed to the Pac-10. Now sit back and watch the Big 12 crumble to nothing. If more teams follow, the Pac-10 could look completely different in a blink of the eye. Also considering USC was just slapped with a two-year postseason ban, things are getting really juicy.

Now lets step back and take a look at how this affects more local teams, namely the Big Sky and the Montana schools. Talk of moving up to FBS is nothing new for Montana and Montana State, however is it the right move if this Big 12 vacuum clears some space in the smaller conferences?

Having seen a program fall flat when they moved up first hand, let me be the first to say that the Montana schools don't want to become the next Idaho. They also shouldn't expect to have Boise State-like success if they move up. I recently read this very well-written article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle by Will Holden explaining the challenges of the transition from FCS and FBS. I want to show you a few snippets and explain why it would be a bad idea for the Montana schools to move up.

CLICK "READ MORE" TO SEE THE FULL BREAKDOWN

Coming to a video game store near you

It makes sense, since he was probably the best all-around college football player for the past three or four years, but I'd imagine some people will groan about Tim Tebow being on the cover of NCAA Football 11.

According to Tim Tebow, the best part about being the "NCAA Football 11" cover athlete isn't seeing his face plastered on the front window of every video game store in the country. It's the chance to play his favorite game before anyone else. "I've been playing this game since I was 6," Tebow told me during his photo shoot. "But they made so many big changes this year, I needed to find out the secrets before it came out."

That's why Tebow made the trip to EA Sports' Orlando studio, spending half his day posing for pictures, the other half hunkered down in various gameplay producers' cubicles learning the ins and outs of this year's groundbreaking title. The difference? Try a brand-new locomotion physics engine that allows players to move and react realistically on the field, including running with momentum and leaning forward to truck defenders. Best of all, the game finally nails the difference between a player's speed and acceleration, giving guys with higher acceleration ratings the ability to burst out of their stances at the snap.

But playing games and smiling for cameras wasn't all Tebow was up to in Florida. The quarterback's other mission was to hunt down "Madden NFL 11'" ratings guru Donny Moore. Tebow wanted to put in a good word for his cyber self in hopes of boosting his stock a few points, especially when it comes to his speed and trucking ability. And it looks like the face-to-face time with Moore worked to Tebow's advantage.

I'm not wondering about the cover as much as I'm wondering about Tebow as a quarterback. I still think that he'll be something of a bust in the NFL since he won't be able to run over players like he use to in college. He's not particularly fast, nor is he an excellent passer (He's not a bad one, but in the NFL you have to have pinpoint accuracy and timing. This might be the mountain top for Tebow and that's fine.

Eagles depth at QB also a curse?

One of the underlying stories this spring for Eastern Washington University football is the logjam they have at the quarterback position. This isn't anything new, as Erik Meyer battled Skyler Allen for the starting job in 2004, and Matt Nichols fended off Chris Peerboom for the position in 2006 (it wasn't that tough, actually, Peerboom was a trainwreck). However, this isn't just two guys going for one spot. It's six.

Yes a half-dozen quarterbacks have aspirations for the starting quarterback position at Eastern Washington University, and the normal reaction would be "hey, fantastic, the more depth the better!" but that's simply not the case. This might be a hand grenade that blows up in Eastern's hand and I'm a bit worried about it.

First they brought in an SMU transfer Bo Levi Mitchell, which is a fantastic grab by the coaching staff. Anytime you can get a player from the upper level of Div. I, you've got to be happy. However, the issue I have with Mitchell is that he's a junior meaning that at best, we'll get two good years from him. Nevermind it might take him a while to get acclimated to the system.

The other problem is that there is plenty of young talented quarterbacks that were already in the system at EWU before Mitchell came. I'm always following the school of thought that you want to go with the guys that have been in your system for a while, and will give you plenty of years out on the field. Sophomore quarterback Jeff Minnerly looked pretty good last season when he gave Matt Nichols a break in games. I don't see why he couldn't be the heir apparent to the position as opposed to Mitchell.

There are plenty of quarterbacks on the roster too, but I can't really comment on them because I haven't seen them play. However, they're probably thinking the same thing Mitchel and Minnerly are thinking - I came here to play, not sit on the bench.

I understand that this is how the game of football works and things will shake out, but I would guess that Mitchell would be the front-runner for the job and that would cause a large majority of the quarterbacks behind him in the depth chart to transfer. Those kids are competitors and expected to play when they came out to EWU. Then this new kid transfers in and takes that spot. It's all very normal in the world of college football, but if you're those kids - you're probably out of here. So your sudden depth at the quarterback position is lost. And since Mitchell is a junior, we only get him for two years.

What happens after that? These young kids you were bringing up in the system are gone. The quarterbacks that did have some playing time are gone. Mitchell merely serves as a stop-gap and then two years from now you find yourself throwing an untested freshman quarterback out to the wolves.

I don't think Eagle fans understand just how important this spring is when it comes to setting up the future for Eastern's football program, and the long ramifications it could have. Let's hope that the coaching staff makes the best possible choice and has enough foresight to understand that perhaps having six kids competing for the same job isn't the best possible situation.

College Coaches like the BCS

That is... until it's the end of the season and their one-loss team is shut out of the national championship game. Otherwise college coaches LOVE the current system in place.

...when asked by the American Football Coaches Association at its annual convention in January. But it was still a little surprising when the AFCA released the numbers of its poll today just how overwhelming their support for the otherwise reviled BCS really is:

• Ninety-three percent of the 117 FBS head coaches who responded to the survey prefer the traditional bowl system over a playoff.
• Eighty-five percent are in favor of the current BCS team selection process.
• Thirty percent of the coaches favor some modifications to the BCS system. Of that group, 50 percent prefer the “plus one” model that would result in the addition of a fifth BCS bowl game.

Looks like that playoff system is never happening.

Idaho releases schedule

Idaho just released it's 2010 schedule, coming off that wonderful Humanitarian Bowl win season and it looks like they might be setting themselves up for another bowl run.

2010 schedule

Sept. 2 - North Dakota 
Sept. 11 - at Nebraska
Sept. 18 - UNLV 
Sept. 25 - at Colorado State
Oct. 2 - Western Michigan
Oct. 9 - bye
Oct. 16 - at Louisiana Tech  
Oct. 23 - New Mexico State
Oct. 30 - at Hawai`i 
Nov. 6 - Nevada
Nov. 12 - Boise State
Nov. 20 - at Utah State
Nov. 27 - at Fresno State
Dec. 5 - San Jose State

Oh and circle Nov. 12, you know that one is going to be a barn-burner in Moscow.