California, the Pac-10's Last Hope Against the...Mountain West Conference?

Not exactly. Oregon State gets to travel to Salt Lake City to play Utah on a Thursday night affair in a couple of weeks.

But I don't expect the Beavers to win that. The Utes look pretty good. So, California might be the last team in the good ol' Pac-10 that can earn a victory over, uh, the Mountain West Conference, when it hosts Colorado State this weekend in Berkeley.

Much of the talk the last couple of weeks is how good the Mountain West really is. The MWC, with its schools former members of the Western Athletic Conference (yeah, remember that huge thing in the 1990s?), has three ranked teams in the top 25 this week, one team ranked in the top 12 and owns a 5-0 record against the Conference of Champions (yes, the Pac-10 has the most national championships, of any conference, by far).

Pretty good credentials, no? I do admit, that over the last couple of weeks, I've ranked the Mountain West very high in my conference power rankings, ahead of four of the six BCS conferences.

But is the Mountain West better than the Pac-10? I wouldn't go that far.

And so, this takes me to a column ran in the Daily Cal today, that also suggests that the MWC isn't as good as the Pacific 10. Which has gotten into the inner circles of the Rams most ardent fans, as ramsnation.com has gone crazy, well not too crazy, over Andrew Kim's assertion that the Mountain West is still the Mountain West.

I admit it. The MWC is a pretty good conference...this year. In fact, I truly believe that it's better than the Big East--but only for this year.

But it isn't better than the Pac-10, despite previous reports.

Most of those berating Andrew Kim's column point to those three teams ranked in the top 25. They point to the fact that Southern California is the only team that is ranked in the Pac-10. They point out the 5-0 record against Pac-10 foes.

But who did those Mountain West Conference teams beat? Other than what I always knew was an overrated Arizona State, none of the teams that the MWC has beat-up on was expected to compete in upper echelon of the Pac-10.

Sure, UCLA upset Tennessee, but the Vols aren't the Vols of old. And the Bruins aren't the Bruins of old.

MWC top-dog barely escaped Seattle with a one-point win over Washington (when the game should have gone into overtime).

Stanford and Arizona? Please, they'll both finish in the bottom half.

And who have the top three teams in the Mountain West played so far that gives us any indication that those squads are any good?

BYU? Wins over the aforementioned Huskies and Bruins, D-I AA Northern Iowa and lowly Wyoming.

Utah? The two-years away from being a power again Michigan, conference foes UNLV and Air Force and pseudo-state rival and officially the worst team in the Division I-A football, Utah State.

TCU? New Mexico, Stephen F. Austin, the Cardinal and Southern Methodist.

Any of those teams in the top 25? The top 35? Top 50?

Yes, on the merit of three 4-0 teams, the Mountain West is better, right now, this week in college football.

But to say that the entire depth of the Mountain West makes it a better conference than the Pac-10, that's just crazy. Just because the three best teams are ranked doesn't mean that the rest of the conference is automatically better.

This isn't economics. There's no need for the Ronald Reagan tickle-down effect theory when it comes to the talent of a single football conference. And if that were the case, then wouldn't the Pac-10 be the best conference, because the Trojans are the best team in all the land?

That brings us to this week and the showdown for conference bragging rights (?!) when Cal hosts Colorado State. Because the teams that have been slayed by the Mountain West are not teams that you would think would rule the Pac-10, this is the only shot that the MWC has against a team of any merit in the Pac-10.

So, MWC die-hards are salivating at the prospects of the Rams beating California on the road.

But, can you really say that Colorado State has any chance of doing that Saturday?

CSU lost to in-state rival Colorado. CSU beat D-IAA Sacramento State by three points. Sure it beat up on Houston, but it's Houston. It wasn't like they were thrashing Washington or Stanford.

Why the Mountain West is collectively clinging and vicariously living for this game is because of an inferiority complex that the mid-major conferences have always had since the beginning of time.

The BCS conferences have the tradition, the talent, the money to compete at the highest level and all the attention. The mid-majors have been trying to beat that and gain that for decades.

It won't happen in one season. And it won't happen on Saturday.