The Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference Champions to square off on Championship Saturday 2010

November 12, 2009 - The Mountain West Conference (MWC) and the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) are closing in on a deal that will send the football champion of each respective conference to a Championship Game against each other the first weekend of December much like the ACC, Big 12, SEC, C-USA and MAC currently have in place. The game would be played at a predetermined neutral facility.

Since the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences currently lack enough teams to maintain a Championship Game structure as individual leagues, the logical choice among each school's presidents was to let the champions of each league square off with a chance for the winner to be represented in the current BCS bowl process.

No guarantee with BCS officials has been made to secure an automatic BCS bowl bid for the winner of the MWC/WAC Championship Game and naming rights for the game are yet to be determined. Despite lacking a current agreement with BCS officials, the game would at the least alleviate some of the strength of schedule difficulties hampering schools from both conferences.

Had the deal been put into place this season, the possibility that TCU (currently ranked No. 4 in the BCS Poll) and Boise State (currently ranked No. 6) would square off on December 5 could have been a stunning reality assuming both continue to win out. TCU will face No. 16 Utah this Saturday in Fort Worth while Boise State will host Idaho.

BCS representatives continue to receive criticism from non-aligned BCS conferences that they are not getting a fair shake in the bowl selection process. This week Texas head coach Mack Brown spoke out in support of schools not getting an equal chance at receiving an automatic BCS bid. While the MWC/WAC Championship Game would not necessarily place the BCS selection process on a level playing field, it would at least help solve some of the scheduling problems that mid-major schools face.

This week the Idaho Statesman released an article claiming that Boise State was having difficulty finding non-conference opponents for 2011. Several high-profile programs have turned down a chance to play a home game against Boise State in 2011, WAC commissioner Karl Benson said Tuesday. Benson isn't sure of the exact number of schools that have said no, but figures it is close to 10. The Broncos aren't asking for any games in Boise in return, he said.

Boise State has taken a great deal of criticism from the media for having such a light schedule this season. Their scheduling plight could keep the Broncos out of a BCS bowl. Not one of Boise State's 13 regular season games has been selected for a prime time Saturday television broadcast by the major networks. The Broncos however will open the 2010 season with Virginia Tech at FedEx Field in Landover, MD next Labor Day, a deal that ESPN helped to bring toward fruition.

Of course, the story you have just read is only a proposal by NationalChamps.net. No such agreement currently exists between the MWC and WAC for a Championship Game. The logic is that mid-major programs have to do more to help themselves as opposed to waiting for the BCS decision makers to rule in their favor. But this would be a step in the right direction.