Now that the decision has been made to stay in the Mountain West I took a quick look at the Football Recruiting Team Rankings for 2013 Link:(247 Sports) to see how the future strength of the conference may unfold. I also looked at the conference we will never join for comparison. I separated the so called fence sitters that may or may not join the Mountain West and/or Big East as well as a few others mentioned as possibilities for joining the Mountain West.

Where strength of schedule will be a major factor beginning in 2014 I thought it would be an important issue to consider. From the rankings I'm not convinced the Mountain will be the "Best of the Rest" over the next four or five years. The conference has too many bottom feeders and changing that in the near future doesn't look promising. With Nevada, Utah State and San Jose State looking for new coaches and Hawaii, UNLV, Wyoming and Colorado State continuing to struggle half the conference is sub-par. It also disheartened me to hear "The Hair" mention possibly bringing in UTEP. We don't need another bottom feeder.

It would be nice if there was a way to bring BYU and their TV production facility and cable reach into the fold now that the MTN is dead. I'm not sure with the history between the conference and the school that would be possible.

As long as I'm dreaming let's put Boise, Houston, BYU, SMU, Tulsa , San Diego State, Fresno, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado State, Wyoming and Nevada in the Mountain West. We'll save the WAC with San Jose State, Hawaii, UNLV, New Mexico State, UTEP, Rice, Utah State and Idaho. Then we may have a shot at the "Best of the Rest"