Boise State joins Mountain West Conference

NCAA Football Betting Lines

06/11/2010 - Colorado Springs, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Mountain West Conference announced Friday that Boise State has accepted an invitation to join the conference beginning July 1, 2011.

Boise State moves on from the Western Athletic Conference and becomes the 10th member of the MWC. It's the first addition to the league since TCU joined in 2005.

"We are pleased and excited to welcome Boise State University to the Mountain West Conference," said commissioner Craig Thompson. "Since our inception just 11 short years ago, the Mountain West has experienced tremendous success, and the addition of Boise State will further enhance that strength. The MWC continues to strategize regarding potential membership scenarios and bringing Boise State into the conference is an important part of that evolution."

On Monday, the Mountain West announced it had decided to put expansion plans on hold, citing uncertainty in the shifting landscape of college sports with changes already in the works for some of the elite conferences such as the Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10.

Boise State joins current MWC members Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU, UNLV, Utah and Wyoming.

"It will be a privilege to compete and partner with such a successful group of member institutions. This move is in the best interests of Boise State's future, and the university is excited to be part of one of the nation's most outstanding conferences," said Boise State president Bob Kustra.

It's the second conference shift in as many days following Colorado's move from the Big 12 to the Pac-10. Another Big 12 member, Nebraska, has decided to apply for membership in the Big Ten.

The spotlight on Friday's marriage of Boise State and the Mountain West will surely shine brightest on the gridiron with the two longtime thorns in the Bowl Championship Series' collective side. The Broncos have put together two undefeated seasons in the last four years under head coach Chris Petersen, garnering the label of "BCS Buster."

However, the WAC, like the MWC, does not hold an automatic bid under the current BCS system, making it nearly impossible to gain a shot at playing for a national championship. That's something the Mountain West has gone as far as the courts to try and change, albeit unsuccessfully, after similar on-field successes by Utah and TCU over the last few years.

There are 11 Division I conferences within football and under the current BCS format, only six of those -- the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-10 -- receive automatic bids to the lucrative BCS bowls.

Other potential conference realignments on the horizon, including a palpable complete dissolution of the Big 12, would bring about a shakeup in the system, and proponents of change will certainly point to the new-look Mountain West as a candidate for inclusion.

The Big 12 had given a deadline of Friday for both Nebraska and Missouri to make decisions on whether to remain in the conference. Meanwhile, the Pac-10 is rumored to be crafting a mega-expansion to 16 teams with invitations to a handful of Big 12 schools, including marquee members Texas and Oklahoma.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.