Through 2007. the MWC was 66-115 vs BCS teams.

Since becoming a member of the MWC, through 2008, BYU is 13-17 vs BCS teams.

The best record of any BCS team BYU has beaten during that time is 7-5 (Washington 1999). Oregon 2006 and Georgia Tech 2003 were 7-6. Everyone else was 0.500 or worse. BYU has lost to four sub-.500 BCS teams during that period.

If USC can lose to a mediocre Oregon State team I'm thinking they're probably overrated this year and will likely drop another somewhere along the way.

what are the percentages for the last 10 years and last 5 years for BYU and the MWC? Is there a trend? Off the top of my head I would guess there has been improvement. And why not throw in 2008 as well, since most of the conference games against the BCS this year have been played.

I don't have the 2008 figures handy.

Holy crap. That is worse than I thought.

Well, no matter. The MWC has done really well the past 3 weeks, so that should basically counter any data you may provide for us here.

Mid Major is a fictional term! We can compete with these guys!

MWC vs BCS by year

Of the 9 BCS teams defeated by the MWC in 2007, only Virginia had a winning record.

It's 7-3 this year, by the way. So the trend seems to be upward. .500 in OOC games vs. the BCS is nothing to sneeze at since most of the 6 BCS conferences are right around .500 against each other every year.

If BYU and Utah hadn't beaten UCLA, they would have had a winning record. BEAT DOWN!

Not surprising though. Winning teams are harder to beat. You could run the same analysis for BCS leagues and come up with something similar.

7-3

Similar, but not THAT stark.

*sneezes*

But we're not the WAC or Sunbelt or MAC.

Please do not denigrate the Sunbelt or the MAC. I would hate for fans to start thinking that the Sunbelt is any less of a conference than the SEC.

So let me ask you this. How do you perceive the MWC in comparison to the other non-BCS leagues? Better? The same? Worse?

If you can't see the difference between 7-3 and 2-22, then you need some real help with math. Are you really this dense? Did I ever say the Sunbelt was as good as the SEC? My original point was the fans like you see no real difference between a league like the MWC and the Sunbelt. After all, we're both "mid major." And while you seem to refute that on the surface, your arguments pretty much reveal that IS what you think. This is where I have a problem with the mid major label. It's just an attempt to group us all together whether the grouping makes sense or not. The MWC is a lot closer to the PAC 10 than the other non-BCS leagues are. Indy can bring up that the 7-7 record last year doesn't mean much, but hell, WAC teams lost EIGHTEEN freaking games in a row against the BCS last year before they won one. Was every one of those 18 teams a winning team?

How many of those games versus the BCS were road games?

If I understand your logic correctly, then there is really no difference. Conferences are mostly equal and year over year, the talent gap and quality is basically the same.

Personally, I am biased towards BYU. Also, Utah had an amazing run of dominance. In 2004, they were an excellent team that was definitely Top 5 material. This year, both BYU and Utah are poised to make a special run on the national stage. My point being, of all the mid majors, the MWC seems to have consistently produced someone to take the national stage each year.

So if I had to answer, I would say that the MWC generally is better than....say....the SunBelt or the MAC.

On the surface? My original point is that i DO think that the MWC is a mid-major. I have never hidden that. Of course we are a mid-major. We play in a lame conference that has little national appeal, we are tired to a crappy stupid bowl game, and it is impossible to watch our games on TV. We are generally not as deep as the BCS conferences top to bottom, our revenues as a conference are lower, our attendance as a conference tends to be lower, our recruiting classes as a conference tend to be rated lower, etc....what evidence do you have that the MWC is NOT a mid-major?

This is the big head scratcher for me. Why is being a mid-major such a big deal? Why is it so negative? I don't see it that way. I just see it as reality.

Where we seem to really differ is your unsupportable stance that all fans of BCS schools believe that all BCS teams are better than non-BCS teams. As I stated before, such a stance seems silly.

The argument is flawed from the start. Mid Majors are asked to compete and somehow be better than Majors, yet are denied the benefits of Majors that allows them to continue to be Majors. Think Urban Meyer. Utah start the ball rolling only to allow bigger funded schools that are provided more funding through the BCS to hire coaching/recruiting talent away from the mid majors. So tell me, How long and how consistant, with the odds stacked against are the mid majors to compete before the field levels?

Somehow, magically the mid majors are suppose to show a winning % that is better than what the BCS conferences can do? Are you kidding?

This is a standard retort, and has merit.....

except that, as has been pointed out before, the BCS/Bowl Alliance has been around for a decade. The mid-majors were failing to win football NCs for decades before that. Again, with the exception of BYU, nobody else has done it since before WW2. So the BCS is not to blame for the lack of championships at the mid major level. It is simply the weak SOS for teams that play in these traditionally marginal football conferences.

Geez, how many times do I have to say I am NOT saying all conferences are equal. I have a problem with the mid major label because fans like you see it and lump all those mid major conferences into the same pot. You can't even come out and say definitively that the MWC is better than the WAC or MAC or Sunbelt. You think it might be but only because you're probably biased? You would use numbers to support that the MWC is not as good as the BCS leagues and think when Indy brings up that we mostly beat losing teams last year, but you totally ignore the difference between the MWC's record and that of all the other non-BCS leagues. Why? Because you're stuck in ESPN land and can't get past the mid major label. You don't think there is a difference between the MWC going 7-7 against the BCS and a conference like the WAC or Sunbelt or MAC or CUSA going 2-22?

I guess I dont understand your point.

I dont know how to say it more clearly. I DO lump all the mid-majors into the same pot.....the pot being "Not as Good as the BCS conferences" pot. Who cares if the MWC is better than the Big Sky? I certainly don't.

This is standard as well.

I am headed to the PGA tourney but would love to continue the discussion upon my return. Everyone have a great day!

Baylor hasn't won it since WW2 either. But they get all the benefits anyway.

How about this. What if one day I said Triplet Dad is a mid-major poster on Cougarguard? How would that make you feel about yourself? Better or worse?

You'd probably think to yourself..."I work just as hard as SU, IPU, Arch and the rest of those fellas. In fact, I occasionally produce some good material. Though I'm not as consistently awesome as say, YOhio, there have been times I could hang with him. Why am I then automatically relegated to mid-major status? It's just not right!"

That didn't feel very good did it Triplet?

That's the point. Your bias makes it forever impossible for you to ever acknowledge that the MWC belongs at the same table at the BCS. That is what gives the Big East an auto bid while the MWC can outperform them and get nothing. Because you lump us together with the non-BCS it allows you to ignore any accomplishment from the MWC no matter what. Utah can beat the crap out of Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl. Means nothing. BYU can win a BCS game this year. Won't mean anything. I can prove the MWC is much better than the other non-BCS leagues, showing they deserve a little more consideration than the WAC but it means nothing. Just because of a label enforced by the BCS and promoted by the media, mostly ESPN.

actually BlueK, it's not wins that determine the BCS structure. It's money. Look at the athletic dept. budgets as well as the TV contracts for each of the conferences and see where the MWC ends up.

I view this as a different argument. I agree that the BCS is unfair in that coattail schools such as Baylor get the financial benefits. But that doesnt make those crappy schools better football programs.

If what you were saying earlier is true, then Baylor fans this year want a piece of BYU because they all think that they are better. And ESPN would pick Baylor over BYU. That is where you are losing me. It seems to be an overstatement of bias towards all BCS schools. There is bias towards the usual suspects (SC, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, etc...), but not across the board.

I knew you were going to get a crazy big swollen head. I wish I had never said anything about your Y'zGuy post.

For the record, I view myself here as a definite mid-major. I have no power, no control of my own destiny, yet everyone wants me because I automatically boost ratings and ticket sales.

swish

Btw, the red-dot next to the profile indicates one's mid-major status.

And this, amigo, is the last word.

In my previous post, I listed several things that make us mid major......TV contracts, annual revenues amongst them.

Utah beating a crappy Pitt team has very little to do with the BCS.

The BCS is simply a way to control the revenue.

i am constantly confused by the so-called capitalists on this site and CB who then bemoan professional sports leagues and the BCS.....things that are basically the epitome of capitalism. If the free market wanted mid majors in the BCS, then they would be included regularly.

I'm embracing the red dot.

BTW, I gave you negative feedback yesterday for your use of the n-bomb.

I think Baylor fans would think they would beat BYU. Ok, maybe Baylor is an extreme example because they have so thoroughly sucked for a long time. They almost dont' have fans. But I think Mike Waters who lives around here and actually knows Big 12 fans would probably agree with me that fans of lower level Big 12 teams probably would expect to beat BYU, despite our history, ranking and record. Don't bring up pointspreads in the UW and UCLA games. I'm talking about run of the mill fans, not professional gamblers.

I just gave you negative feedback for doing that.

a cartel is a way to keep the free market from working the way it would if it were truly free. That's what the BCS is. I'll keep bashing away.

The reason that the BCS upsets BYU fans so much, is that we are truly the one team among the mid-majors who doesn't belong to them, and ought to be in a BCS conference. based on history, revenues, fan base, attendance, etc.

If BYU left the MWC, the MWC instantly becomes the WAC.

I've long argued that BYU ought to get out of the MWC if it possibly can (can't).

And again, i say....who cares what fans think?

Prior to the BCS, what did those Big 12 fans think about their chances vs BYU? Probably the exact same hubris.

Your issue should not be with the BCS. It should be with BYU's basically pretty crappy record against these BCS teams. if we would win the majority of our BCS games, then the reasonable opponents would take note and not view us that way (again assuming that you care what other fans think).

if we won most of our BCS games, what choice would the media have but to write about the fact that we win most of our games?

Btw, giving me negative feedback is a little like praying to God and asking Him to punish Himself.