Mountain West Conference deserves automatic BCS bowl bid

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After the University of Utah football team finished as the nation's only undefeated team by beating the University of Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, the Mountain West Conference felt they had a strong case to obtain a permanent automatic BCS bowl bid. However, the BCS committee did not feel the same way.

With another undefeated performance this past season from a MWC team, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs this time, it has caused many people around the nation to wonder when, if ever, the BCS will finally give the MWC the automatic BCS bid they deserve.

On one side of the argument, numerous college football fans believe the MWC only has three good teams--Utah, TCU and Brigham Young University. With teams like Colorado State University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and San Diego State University rounding out the bottom of the conference, those fans just don't think the MWC is strong enough from top to bottom to deserve an automatic bid.

However, along with many other college fans across the nation, I find myself standing on the other side of the fence concerning this debate. I feel the MWC's 2-1 record in BCS bowl games the past five years has clearly shown its best teams can match up well against some of college football's elite. Additionally, with 5 of its 9 teams being eligible for bowl games this past season, it's hard for anyone to say the MWC is a top-heavy conference.

This issue wouldn't even be relevant today without Utah's coming out party in 2005. With coach Urban Meyer in his final season with the Utes before moving on to lead the University of Florida, the team was able to go undefeated, giving them the MWC's first ever BCS bowl berth. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Utah surprised the nation with an overwhelming 35-7 Fiesta Bowl victory over the heavily favored University of Pittsburgh.

With a single BCS victory under its belt at that point, it was too early to begin discussing automatic BCS bowl bids. Yet, with the aforementioned undefeated season and Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama in 2009, Utah finally gave the MWC a legitimate argument in its quest for a permanent bid.

Still, there was at least one nationally recognized critic who wasn't ready to jump on the MWC bandwagon. According to an article by Christian Carlson on www.universe.byu.edu, Dan Patrick, best known for his 17 years with ESPN as an anchor and radio broadcaster, said a reason Utah won the Sugar Bowl was because Alabama wasn't motivated to play a game against a non-BCS opponent.

While Patrick has been one of my favorite ESPN personalities, I can't help but feel his argument concerning the legitimacy of Utah's second BCS victory is absolutely ludicrous. I don't see how you can blame Alabama losing simply on the fact Utah is in a non-BCS conference. No matter who they were playing, Alabama, its players and its coaching staff should have come prepared to play hard. They didn't and they lost. It's as simple as that.

If the MWC's five-year run of producing BCS quality teams isn't enough to give them an automatic bid, it might be smart for fans to look at the conference's overall success during the 2009 season. TCU, BYU, Utah, Air Force and Wyoming all won at least six games, the required amount to be eligible for a bowl game berth. Even more, TCU became the third MWC to earn a BCS bowl bid in the past five years, though they ended up losing 17-10 to Boise State University in the Fiesta Bowl.

TCU's loss to Boise State turned out to be the MWC's only loss during the bowl season, as BYU, Utah, Air Force and Wyoming were all able to pull off victories. The MWC's 4-1 bowl record was good enough to earn them the Bowl Challenge Cup for the third time in six seasons. Since the award's creation in 2002, the MWC has won it more times than any other conference in college football.

So, if the MWC is such a top-heavy conference, I must ask why there are at least four or five teams making it to bowl games each season? Furthermore, I am inclined to point out that not only are these teams earning bowl bids, but they are showing they belong there by consistently beating whatever opponents are thrown at them. This alone should make it easy to see the MWC really does deserve an automatic BCS bowl bid.

With the popularity of the BCS system at an all-time low, I strongly feel it could only benefit--and possibly gain a few much-needed fans--by giving the MWC an automatic bid. If college football wants to seriously rank right up there with the popularity of the NFL, then I think it is crucial for them to make the necessary changes to make its fans happy.

With all this said, I think the BCS must give the MWC an automatic bid--and soon. If not, there's at least one fan college football might lose out on in the very near future.

President Obama should take troops out of Iraq

While unemployment and the nation's economic crisis were prominent topics at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address last week, there's one issue that U.S citizens remain divided on--the Iraq War.

On one side, supporters of continued military action in Iraq believe the troop surge is working and the insurgents are being defeated. Additionally, they think that a continued U.S. presence is necessary to ensure the democratic governemtn in Iraq will continue.

However, I stand on the other side of the fence concerning this controversial topic for a number of reasons. First, no mass weapons of destruction were ever found. Second, more than 5,300 American service men and women have lost their lives in the conflict. Lastly, the cost of the war has now surpassed $700 billion.

In a speech delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, former President George W. Bush stood before the nation and tried to rationalize a war with Iraq. In the speech, he said Saddam Hussein's Iraq "possesses and produces chemican and biological weapons: and "is seeking nuclear weapons."

Only two years later, after a CIA report concluded there were not any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush was forced to backtrack on his prior statment. He said, "There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks, and in the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."

That backtracking occurred in 2004, showing we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq in the first place. Now, six years later, I am left to wonder why President Obama has yet to pull our troops out of a problem that is not ours to deal with.

As I previously mentioned, the sot of the war has now surpassed $700 billion. Taking that figure even further though, this diasaster is costing taxpaying citizens a whopping $20 million an hour. Taking it even one step further, the cost per second is $6,000.

With the country's unemployment at an allt-ime low and families struggling with the economic crisis, the money being spent on the war is valuable money we could be using to keep our own citizens afloat. As a world power, it is understandable to want to help those in need around the world. yet, when we can't even help our own citizens in a time of need, how does it make sense to give so much of our money to a country half way around the world?

With all this said, it's time for President Obama to stick to some of his campaign promises and quickly get our U.S. soldiers out of Iraq. We have spent too much time and money fighting a war that was justified for the wrong reasons. If he doesn't, I fear thousands of soldiers will continue to die and our deficit will continue to grow, things our country just can't deal with right now.