TCU is leaving the Mountain West in its dust while it heads for the Big East and the BCS.

Despite the Big East being an inferior conference when compared to the Mountain West, the TCU’s path to a BCS bowl and even the championship just got easier. After being overlooked by the Big XII, the struggling Big East just accepted TCU into their conference. Read the details here.

This move seems to make sense for both parties. The Big East expands to Texas, a large football market, while bringing an actual championship contender into its fold. TCU is abandoning a better conference (just look at the comparisons between the two) for an easy path to an automatic BCS bowl berth.

On the flip side, the lose of TCU is a detriment to the MWC. It was only a matter of time after Utah and BYU decided to leave. Even with the new inclusions of Boise St next year and Nevada and Fresno St in 2012, the conference will sorely miss TCU’s presence.

While the state of the MWC no longer affects BYU, it’s sad to see the biggest threat to the BCS dismantled.  Boise St and Hawaii (which had a very poor performance in its lone appearance) will be the only BCS busters not joined up with the system it waged war against.  Hopefully BYU will get back to form and teams like Nevada, Fresno St, Hawaii, and Houston will be able to field consistently good teams. I’m not going to get into it now, but we need to scrap the BCS and form a playoff.

The Pac-10 either missed out on or chose to overlook TCU this summer when it expanded. I mean, Colorado?! They have neither a good football or basketball program or a large market. What did the conference gain from including them? And after they tried to steal half of the Big XII we know they were willing to expand as far as Texas. Plus Utah and TCU already have a very real rivalry, which the Pac-10 seems to love.

The Big East is not nearly as good as the Pac-10, but this probably plays to TCU’s favor. The Horned Frogs should have little to no competition for the Big East title and a yearly appearance in a BCS bowl.  Now a close loss to a good team will not eliminate them from contention of a BCS bowl, much like what just happened to Boise St.

While the Big East is now up to 9 members (the perfect size for a conference in my opinion), their already large basketball conference just got larger.  TCU couldn’t even compete in the MWC in basketball.  The MWC has some pretty decent talent and sent 4 teams to the big dance, but by no means does it compare to the depth of the Big East. So it’s going to be even harder for TCU to get any recognition there.

Overall, it was probably a good move by TCU and the Big East.  I just wish it wasn’t even better for the BCS.

Since news about BYU’s interest in going independent came out, most national media appears to be against them.  Articles like this and another article from a news paper in Fort Worth (I saw it on the news but couldn’t find it online) dog on BYU for being “arrogant to the point of delusional.”  The Fort Worth (the home of TCU) article says that BYU hasn’t done anything except occasionally get in the way of MWC real powerhouses, TCU and Utah, and is probably scared of new member Boise St.  I openly admit that TCU is the team to beat in the MWC this year, but they are hardly a reason for BYU to run away.

BYU has been to the Las Vegas bowl the last 5 years, which is not that impressive of a bowl, but it is where the number 2 school in the MWC is invited.  So BYU has not been to a BCS bowl, but they are consistently at the top of the conference.  TCU’s program has improved over the years and has a lot to be proud of, but if they think a loss to another non-AQ school in their one BCS bowl appearance puts them on another level than BYU they’re wrong (just ask Hawaii). Talk about arrogance.

I don’t suspect TCU is going to disappear any time soon, but neither is BYU.  The last 4 years BYU has been ranked in the top 25 in the post season polls.  TCU was not ranked in ’07 and Utah was not ranked the 3 consecutive seasons between their BCS bowl births.  While I feel BYU has not played to their full potential the last several seasons, they have proven to be consistent and a continual threat in the MWC.

So to say BYU is not of value to the MWC (like I have seen in some articles) is naive.  Not to mention all of the other mens and womens sports that BYU has a significant or dominant presence in.  Those sports do not bring in the revenue that football does, but still important to the conference.  Also, BYU’s mens basketball team has ended 2 of the last 4 years ranked in the top 25 and received votes the other two years.  Neither TCU or Utah came close to that.  Not to mention, the MWC is doing what it can to keep BYU in the conference, so it appears BYU is valuable after all.