(Blog Note: This fine post was brought to you by Seth, perhaps the world’s only triple threat Hawaii-Texas-Michigan fan. Today, he takes a look at how the ‘Bows and their league brethern are shaping up as the clock ticks on the 1-team WAC. He’ll be back throughout the summer and season to blog about all things college football)
INTERREGNUM: CLOCK TICKING ON 1-TEAM WAC
By Seth
Yes, it’s an exercise in superfluity to predict Boise State will win the WAC. However, for the record: Boise State will win the WAC. But that’s not interesting; or, at least, it doesn’t make for interesting writing. When you write the WAC preview from the perspective of somebody interested only in the team that makes it out, that plays in a BCS bowl, you reduce any number of results to a binary formulation: either Boise State wins the WAC and finishes undefeated, or Boise State wins the WAC and does not finish undefeated. The consequences you care about aren’t December’s crowning of a conference champion, but rather January’s bowl selection and results.
For a while now, the WAC title race hasn’t been much of an event. It’s not merely because Boise State has taken the conference crown nearly every time; it’s because they’ve lost two games in ten years, and won the conference one of those years anyway. With one season left to play before their revered and despised leader departs for hillier and more verdant pastures, the WAC’s member schools stand ready to greet a welcomingly uncertain future. This preview, then, unlike many others, concerns itself not with this year’s national title race, but rather with the interregnum’s intrigue: the final jockeying for position as the monarch prepares to vacate his throne. Like all horse races, this one has different groupings: the Contenders and the Challengers, and then the (uncovered) Chaff.
The Contenders
Under Pat Hill, Fresno State has never had a losing record in-conference. Of course, with the exception of the 4-8 2006 team’s 
swoon, FSU hasn’t had a losing record over all, either. But even then, in his darkest hour, Hill pulled out four conference victories—including one over 8-win Nevada to open the season. There is no reason to think that this team will not match last year’s conference record, even with its surrender of conference rushing leader (1,808 total yards; 6.6 ypc and 150.67 ypg) Ryan Matthews to the NFL. For one thing, in 2009 each of FSU’s 4 losses was to a bowl team; for another, two of them were to BCS-bound Cincinnati and Boise State, and another was to 10-win Wisconsin (last seen smothering Miami in January, but only after having beaten FSU’s conference-mate Hawai’i 51-10 in December). And for another, pace Myerberg, FSU will replace Matthews better than you might think. Each of the past 6 seasons, they have rushed for more than 4.5 ypc. In fact, before Matthews (2007-2009) became a featured back in the offense, they had several unfairly effective rushing attacks; in 2006, with Dwayne Wright (1,462 yds; 11 TDs) leading the attack, FSU rang up a whopping 5.02 ypc on the ground. Even on route to their worst finish in decades, they got it done down low. Anyone expecting anything less than a stellar rushing attack with the entire offensive line returning for 2010 should be prepared for a pleasant surprise. What the fortunes give in one breath, however, they take away in another; the FSU front seven permitted opponents a whopping 6.01 ypc on the ground, and surrendered an uninspiring 22 rushing touchdowns. This year’s pre-conference schedule promises to yield some victories, as eminently winnable home games against rebuilding Cincinnati and dilapidated Illinois will be complemented by an execution of Cal Poly at home. The marquee OOC match-up, though, looks like it will be at Mississippi, whose defense of Oxford under Houston Nutt has been strong overall (11-3) but prodigious against non-conference opponents (6-0). To demand a win in Mississippi would be unrealistic, but to imagine a 3-1 record out of conference, and a 9-3 record overall, would be well in line with recent results and the consistency Hill’s teams have demonstrated in-conference. Fresno State’s Bulldogs will play in a bowl game this year; whether they will challenge for the second place in-conference, and head into 2011 with a target on their backs, remains to be seen.
Fresno State’s Ryan Matthews took the rushing award very quietly; the bigger to-do, obviously, was Nevada’s convoy of thousand-yard rushers. Blah blah blah system blah blah inflation blah blah. The offense was a sight to behold during Nevada’s 8-game winning streak from October 3rd through November 21st, when they beat UNLV by 5 touchdowns in a home edition of their yearly derby and averaged 47.25 points a game. And yet, on October 3rd, the offense was a sight for sore eyes rather than a sight to behold; opening the year with a hideous blanking in South Bend, and failing to come within a touchdown of (bad) Colorado State and (mediocre) Missouri, had Chris Gault’s team reeling, desperate for a win, heading into the league season. It hardly bears mention that Nevada’s most effective performances came against teams with the worst rushing defenses in the country; with national rankings of #77 and #81, respectively, Idaho and Louisiana Tech put the most effective units on the field to face the Pistol, but Hawai’i’s, Utah State’s, Fresno State’s, UNLV’s, and San Jose State’s piteous squads all gave up more than 200 yards a game on the ground and proved themselves incapable of stopping Nevada whatsoever. The offense will be good, and will win Nevada league games. But can consistency enter the picture, and reduce the recurrent nightmare that has every season marked by tale-of-two-teams streakiness? Feast-or-famine is no way to win conference titles regularly, even in this league. With the WAC championship becoming something other than an abstract property in 2011, it will be the work of 2010 for Gault, and his team, to balance the 7-1 conference record with some out-of-conference victories, and to balance the 344.92 ypg offense with something other than a 409.3 ypg defense. Another excellent league record is within reach, with Nevada playing seven home games for the first time in the ‘pack’s history as a Division-I football team; taking a big step in the direction of a conference crown as soon as that piece of headware becomes wearable will involve going on the road and beating Fresno State and Hawai’i. You have the horses; they all return. Will it be L 10-45 (2010 SMU-Nevada), or W 52-14 (2009 FSU-Nevada), on the scoreboard in Fresno and Honolulu? Champions reduce inconsistency to nothing, and make mistakes marginal factors; as perennial runners-up, the Wolfpack hasn’t yet had to try that out. Read more »
Is Schematic Advantage going to be replaced by 
The Badgers were up 27-7, with the ball, and crushing the -7 line. Of course, nobody with a Badger ticket—or any ticket for that matter—got to cash in. Since the game never reached the official point, sportsbooks in Sin City invalidated everyone’s bets. Refunds all around, so nobody lost money, but speculation has always ran rampant that some shadiness took place to kill the lights as the caravan of Badger fans arriving into Vegas put so much money on their local 11 that it boosted the line from 3-4 points to a full touchdown by game night. The Books were minutes away from having to fork over a lot of cash to imported Cheeseheads. But, then the lights went out and it was as if nobody even placed a bet on the game. Now, I don’t buy conspiracy theorists’ games, and, in this case, there is plausible evidence that the Book would have covered their losses with the Under hitting that night—the same wave of betting that pushed the line up to 7-points also elevated the Over from an opening 54 to a closing 58. But, I wonder just how many people out there will see this game on the board, flash back to that August night opening the 2002 season, shake their head in disgust and refuse to bet this game on principle.
