BYU’s exit would leave gaping hole

The more Craig Thompson speaks, the more he sounds like the steward from "Titanic," the one who told the wealthy passenger to return to her state room, that the shudder she felt was probably nothing more than a thrown propeller.

Don't let the whole sinking-ship irony escape you.

Whether church leaders give their blessing for Brigham Young to embrace the gigantic risk that is playing as an independent in football in today's Bowl Championship Series landscape or not, be assured the Mountain West Conference adding Fresno State and UNR on Wednesday had everything to do with making the Cougars think twice about their possible move and nothing to do with some sudden affinity for all that is Bulldogs and Wolf Pack.

"Our goal is to improve and strengthen our league today, tomorrow, next week," Thompson said. "The addition of two great universities in Fresno State and Nevada are part of that."

It's his story, and he's sticking to it.

Amazingly so.

The only thing adding two teams does is perhaps, but not likely, give BYU pause, in that its grand plan reportedly has the Cougars competing in all sports but football in the Western Athletic Conference.

A WAC without Fresno State and UNR is like, well, a poor man's Mountain West without BYU and Utah. Even much worse.

Try to discover a positive angle for the Mountain West should BYU bolt. Walk around it, examine it, dissect every possible view. Good luck. It's not possible.

The league properly countered Utah's jump to the Pac-10 by adding Boise State and keeping its automatic BCS hopes alive two years from now. There is no suitable counter should BYU follow through with its plans to depart.

Fresno State and UNR don't matter in the eyes of a BCS cartel. They are nobodies in the BCS world, like all Mountain West football programs that don't make Fort Worth or Boise home.

"There is no way to spin this in a positive way," UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood said. "BYU and Utah were two stalwarts of this conference. Reality is reality. They are losses. But we have to move forward."

But how?

Some think BYU might have the mettle to inquire of the Mountain West if it could remain a member in all sports but football, a preposterous notion that Thompson should and hopefully would immediately reject.

Some are dropping hints of combining 20 or more schools -- including those in the Mountain West -- into one league and hoping a championship game between division champions would warrant an automatic BCS berth.

When it comes to BYU, think about it: Where the rest of its athletic teams land, including a men's basketball program that has consistently been among the Mountain West's best, obviously doesn't matter much to the Cougars.

I'm not sure it should.

Football motivates all movement, proven by this summer of conference expansion mania. WAC. Big West. West Coast Conference. As long as BYU thinks the potential for football riches through BCS dollars and TV revenue makes sense, where it shoots baskets and kicks soccer balls is about as important as Thompson thinking anyone believed a word he said Wednesday night about why the league invited Fresno State and UNR, which anyone with a grain of sense didn't.

Or maybe they were still hearing his words from last month's football media day, the ones about no plans for expansion and how happy everyone was with a nine-team configuration that included Boise State.

TV money has changed everything in college sports, and this is the latest example. BYU thinks it can do far better than the $2 million it earns annually from the Mountain West, that making its own TV deals with ESPN would mean great riches. There is truth to that.

I just don't know how well the Cougars do as a football independent. I'm guessing not as well as they think. They are not Notre Dame. No one is.

Scheduling in football will be a huge issue for BYU. Good teams have never lined up to play in Provo, and while BYU has a religious following like Notre Dame, census numbers tell you there are 1.6 billion Catholics in the world and less than 14 million Mormons.

Not all are football fans on either side, but you get the point. The BCS won't look nearly as favorable on an independent BYU as it does Notre Dame and its prodigious following.

For now, today, Fresno State and UNR are in, and the most despised athletic program in Mountain West history by fellow members and their fans could very well be headed out.

BYU is also the league's best all-around athletic program, its most influential, its most powerful when gauging any level of national respect the league received.

The potential (impending?) loss of it will rip yet another deep hole into the hull plate of the Mountain West.

Somewhere, Craig Thompson is painting it as nothing more than a thrown propeller.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.