I went down to cover (what was left of) the WAC Football media day in Las Vegas, Nev.
It was a sorry sight.
The year before, it was an exciting time and everyone there was eager to get back to football season. Players and coaches were robust in the diplomatic smack talk, almost promising to knock off Hawaii, Nevada and Fresno State before they left the league.
Reporters were crawling over each other to ask questions, and I sat alongside those writers whose work I had amired for some time (yes, I had stars in my eyes).
This year, there were only a handful of reporters, and the overwhelming majority were there for Utah State.
Idaho and New Mexico State coaches depressingly answered questions about the future of their program with the inevitibility of at least a year playing football independent from a conference. Texas-San Antonio and Texas State coaches were a little more exuberant, but nobody in the room besides themselves expects either of those teams to win any conference games. Utah State and Louisiana Tech talked more about the non-conference schedule than anything else.
In a phrase, the WAC is dead. At least in football, maybe all sports. I mean, there are rumors out there, but it's extremely unlikely that six FCS teams all want to make the jump to the WAC by next season.
The conference ended fairly early, leaving Photogirl and I to eight hours in Vegas on the newspaper's bill.
To anyone else, this would be a heavensent, but what are two mormons going to do in the Devil's city?
Strip clubs? Gambling? Nope. No interest here in getting wasted, throwing my money away for booze, drugs, slots, cards, sex, or perving.
So we ate some overpriced food, bowled a couple games, killed three hours by watching Spiderman, and took the long way back to the airport.
Lame? Yes.
To quote the man in the airport, "The best thing they did in this city was build a freeway around it."
It was a sorry sight.
The year before, it was an exciting time and everyone there was eager to get back to football season. Players and coaches were robust in the diplomatic smack talk, almost promising to knock off Hawaii, Nevada and Fresno State before they left the league.
Reporters were crawling over each other to ask questions, and I sat alongside those writers whose work I had amired for some time (yes, I had stars in my eyes).
This year, there were only a handful of reporters, and the overwhelming majority were there for Utah State.
Idaho and New Mexico State coaches depressingly answered questions about the future of their program with the inevitibility of at least a year playing football independent from a conference. Texas-San Antonio and Texas State coaches were a little more exuberant, but nobody in the room besides themselves expects either of those teams to win any conference games. Utah State and Louisiana Tech talked more about the non-conference schedule than anything else.
In a phrase, the WAC is dead. At least in football, maybe all sports. I mean, there are rumors out there, but it's extremely unlikely that six FCS teams all want to make the jump to the WAC by next season.
The conference ended fairly early, leaving Photogirl and I to eight hours in Vegas on the newspaper's bill.
To anyone else, this would be a heavensent, but what are two mormons going to do in the Devil's city?
Strip clubs? Gambling? Nope. No interest here in getting wasted, throwing my money away for booze, drugs, slots, cards, sex, or perving.
So we ate some overpriced food, bowled a couple games, killed three hours by watching Spiderman, and took the long way back to the airport.
Lame? Yes.
To quote the man in the airport, "The best thing they did in this city was build a freeway around it."
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