CougarCorner

From Stewart Mandel's mailbag,

As someone pointed out to me this week, the final nine-team Mountain West standings went in exact, descending order, from 8-0 to 0-8, with each team beating all the teams below it and losing to all the teams above it. Technically, not a single surprising result took place in that conference the entire season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... z0YgCWlkPu

That is pretty gnarly. I still can't get over CSU's collapse!

mormonrasta wrote:From Stewart Mandel's mailbag,

As someone pointed out to me this week, the final nine-team Mountain West standings went in exact, descending order, from 8-0 to 0-8, with each team beating all the teams below it and losing to all the teams above it. Technically, not a single surprising result took place in that conference the entire season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... z0YgCWlkPu

Pretty nice catch. The Mountain West did a pretty decent job representing this year; but the bottom of the conf was "wac ugly"

4 more wins this season by MWC teams would have made this the news of the college football year. (I'm not so sure that Bradford getting hurt isnt' the story of the season anyhow, which we had a part in... though that Oline was so bad, I'm not sure they ultimately would have stayed in the top 10)

4 more wins this season
Utah over Oregon
BYU over FSU
Air Force over Navy
Air Force over Minnesota
(of all those games, one bounce could have decided the game for the loser; except the FSU game, which some understandably believe that if we played that game 100 times, that BYU loses 80 of them - I personally think that had the 1st quarter or so gone our way, that Max keeps his cool and this game is managable.)

These are all games that MWC teams could have won, had they played well that day.
That would have made
BYU a top 10 team right now
Utah a top 15 team
Air Force a top 25 team
thus putting TCU ahead of Texas imho and in the national championship game
TCU probably jumps ahead of Texas

(this is something you could probably say for most conferences- but it's interesting how BYU and Utah have an impact on TCUs ultimate destination)

craigoscarson wrote: 4 more wins this season by MWC teams would have made this the news of the college football year. (I'm not so sure that Bradford getting hurt isnt' the story of the season anyhow, which we had a part in... though that Oline was so bad, I'm not sure they ultimately would have stayed in the top 10)

4 more wins this season
Utah over Oregon
BYU over FSU
Air Force over Navy
Air Force over Minnesota
(of all those games, one bounce could have decided the game for the loser; except the FSU game, which some understandably believe that if we played that game 100 times, that BYU loses 80 of them - I personally think that had the 1st quarter or so gone our way, that Max keeps his cool and this game is managable.)

These are all games that MWC teams could have won, had they played well that day.
That would have made
BYU a top 10 team right now
Utah a top 15 team
Air Force a top 25 team
thus putting TCU ahead of Texas imho and in the national championship game
TCU probably jumps ahead of Texas

(this is something you could probably say for most conferences- but it's interesting how BYU and Utah have an impact on TCUs ultimate destination)

I've thought about that too.

The Big Three could send a pretty loud message if they all win their bowl games, though. Especially if TCU somehow gets bumped up to the NC game (which probably won't happen.) Since the Pac-10 has the whole parity thing going on, it would look pretty awesome if TCU won a BCS bowl and BYU and Utah both beat up on strong Pac-10 teams.

you, sir, are the geek of geeks to post that symmetry.

I noticed it too, but wasn't geeky enough to post it.

mormonrasta wrote:From Stewart Mandel's mailbag,

As someone pointed out to me this week, the final nine-team Mountain West standings went in exact, descending order, from 8-0 to 0-8, with each team beating all the teams below it and losing to all the teams above it. Technically, not a single surprising result took place in that conference the entire season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/w ... z0YgCWlkPu

This is BYU football chaismus.

Brilliant!

Mars wrote:
CSU's collapse was astounding. I don't think they suffered ANY major injuries.
Consider this:

Sept. 6th- CSU 23, Colorado 17
Sept. 19th- Colorado 24, Wyoming 0
Nov. 27th- Wyoming 17, CSU 16

I don't know that they really collapsed. There was definitely a defensive falloff after the first three games, though.

Looking at their scores through the year, they only scored over 30 points once (35 vs. Nevada, a win). The rest of their scores average in the 20-22 area, while they points they gave up, after averaging 20 in the first three games, average around 30 per opponent.

From what I can tell they had a consistently poor-to-average offense, and a mostly poor-to-average defense that played well in the first three games and almost well enough to win (in spite of the offense) in a few of the rest.

craigoscarson wrote:4 more wins this season by MWC teams would have made this the news of the college football year. (I'm not so sure that Bradford getting hurt isnt' the story of the season anyhow, which we had a part in... though that Oline was so bad, I'm not sure they ultimately would have stayed in the top 10)

Oline was bad? I'm wondering as two of those Oklahoma OL (Russsell Okung and Trent Williams) were named this week to 1st Team All-American. Apparently our DL just had a breakout game against OU.