State of MWC bowl ties
I had a chance to catch up with MWC deputy commissioner Bret Gilliland to discuss the conference's recent meetings in Phoenix. Several days of meetings included administrators, MWC officials and football and basketball administrators.
Gilliland said the bowl issue was one of the topics discussed. The conference wants to have a bowl destination for a fifth team. It thought it was going to have that if the Rocky Mountain Bowl was accepted, but the NCAA turned that down a couple weeks ago. Still, Gilliland said there is a strong belief the bowl will be accepted next season.
"I know the NCAA thinks we're at a saturation point [with 34 bowls] but they seem comfortable adding one more so there still might be an opportunity for them to get a license next year," he said. In the meantime the conference is weighing opportunities elsewhere, but Gilliland said he doesn't expect a whole lot of shifting until after the 2009 season and the bowls that follow. The BCS agreement and many bowl contracts end then which means there could be a lot of changes and different scenarios broached as contract renewal talks begin.
I asked him about the Las Vegas bowl, which pits teams from the MWC against a Pac-10 team. I know some fans didn't like the rematch between BYU and UCLA last season and some see the WAC as maybe a better option for an opponent, but Gilliland doesn't anticipate a change.
"The majority still like the Pac-10 as an opponent, even though that is something that might be discussed in contract renewals," he said. MWC officials also discussed the ongoing saga of the conference's TV contract deal and security at its basketball tournament in Las Vegas with the fight that broke out following the BYU-UNLV game still fresh on their minds.
"We still have some issues we need to discuss but we have some concepts we are working on related to event security," he said. "We need to flesh those out before we decide what we can do differently."
Potential sites were also discussed for the basketball tournament starting in 2011, but like everything else it seems, those plans are in the initial discussion stages too and there is no real news to share.
*********
ESPN has its MWCfootball preview posted, which is basically a rehash of newspaper articles, but it still might be worth a glance if you are interested. (Nice that ESPN gives credit where credit is due, but I wish they'd get our name right).
Gilliland said the bowl issue was one of the topics discussed. The conference wants to have a bowl destination for a fifth team. It thought it was going to have that if the Rocky Mountain Bowl was accepted, but the NCAA turned that down a couple weeks ago. Still, Gilliland said there is a strong belief the bowl will be accepted next season.
"I know the NCAA thinks we're at a saturation point [with 34 bowls] but they seem comfortable adding one more so there still might be an opportunity for them to get a license next year," he said. In the meantime the conference is weighing opportunities elsewhere, but Gilliland said he doesn't expect a whole lot of shifting until after the 2009 season and the bowls that follow. The BCS agreement and many bowl contracts end then which means there could be a lot of changes and different scenarios broached as contract renewal talks begin.
I asked him about the Las Vegas bowl, which pits teams from the MWC against a Pac-10 team. I know some fans didn't like the rematch between BYU and UCLA last season and some see the WAC as maybe a better option for an opponent, but Gilliland doesn't anticipate a change.
"The majority still like the Pac-10 as an opponent, even though that is something that might be discussed in contract renewals," he said. MWC officials also discussed the ongoing saga of the conference's TV contract deal and security at its basketball tournament in Las Vegas with the fight that broke out following the BYU-UNLV game still fresh on their minds.
"We still have some issues we need to discuss but we have some concepts we are working on related to event security," he said. "We need to flesh those out before we decide what we can do differently."
Potential sites were also discussed for the basketball tournament starting in 2011, but like everything else it seems, those plans are in the initial discussion stages too and there is no real news to share.
*********
ESPN has its MWCfootball preview posted, which is basically a rehash of newspaper articles, but it still might be worth a glance if you are interested. (Nice that ESPN gives credit where credit is due, but I wish they'd get our name right).
10:50 AM
| 
1 Comments:
The MWC doesn't deserve 5 bowl teams, but here is the extra game they want: Humanitarian Bowl needs new partner after ACC goes in another direction
Post a Comment
<< Home