But how well did those “MUCH better” recruiting classes do Cal against Utah in Vegas or back in ’03 (the same year they beat AP champ USC)? Or Oregon State in ’08? Or UCLA in ’07? Shouldn’t the Pac-10 champ, virtually bankrolled by Nike, do better than eke out a 7-point win against a team TCU monkey-stomped by four TD’s?

Besides, as it turns out, those Pac-10/CU recruiting classes aren’t *that* much better than Utah’s, after all.

2010 average star ranking, according to Rivals:

4.20 Southern Cal
3.61 UCLA
3.58 Cal-Berkeley
3.39 Oregon
3.13 Stanford
3.11 Oregon State
3.10 Washington
3.09 Utah
3.04 Arizona
3.04 Arizona State
2.68 Colorado
2.46 Washington State

So, talent-wise, they’re virtually middle-of-the-road — and this is before they shed the recruiting disadvantages of playing in a non-AQ.

Not only that, recruiting rankings are often heavily biased toward or against which “pedigree” of schools offer a certain prospect. Steve Slaton and Pat White were **/*** recruits out of high school. LaDainian Tomlinson had his offer pulled from Texas A&M and was forced to choose between the likes of TCU, SMU, Rice, UTEP, etc.. Chris Johnson was a ** prospect. Toby Gerhart ran for the all-time third-highest official total for career high-school rushing yards, yet only garnered a middling *** rating. There are countless other examples of these biases playing out, but this response is getting rather lengthy as it is.

“Yeah, Utah could pull out the bowl wins and an occasional regular season win…usually against mediocre Pac 10 teams. But playing New Mexico, Wyoming and SDSU in between made those wins possible.”

And now they’ll be playing the likes of Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Washington, Washington State, Stanford, Oregon State, etc. — no guarantees among them, but certainly winnable games. There’s no reason to believe they couldn’t average 4-4 playing those types of schools, week-in, week-out.

Again, USC getting the hammer really makes the Pac-10 a wide-open conference. You look up-and-down the list of schools in that league — who else is really dominant? Who has virtually no chance of suffering a loss on any given Saturday? Not even USC could claim that.

About Big 12 revenue sharing: the bulk of the disparity stems from the fact that Texas plans to launch its own TV network, projected to make $3-5 million. Also, with the new TV deal, everyone else in the Big 12 will make at least double of what they made previously, if not more. It’s a case of “raising all boats,” not just one or two programs getting richer. Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri, Baylor, etc., wouldn’t've made even half of what they have without Texas, A&M or Oklahoma. The same would apply to Utah in the Pac-12 — they won’t be getting the lion’s share, but I’ll bet my @$$ they’ll be better off riding USC or UCLA’s coattails than anyone in the MWC.

And no, SLC is not the largest market in MWC territory; that distinction belongs to the DFW area, which, in actuality, is dominated by the Big 12, and — you guessed it — Texas and Oklahoma.

San Diego? Pac-10 country.

Vegas? Pac-10 country.

If anything, Utah will benefit by appearing in nationally televised games on FSN or even Versus (or with whomever the Pac-12 signs a deal), as opposed to “the MTN,” a station not even available on most anyone’s standard tier of channels outside of the conference’s footprint.

Don’t forget what the Big 12 just did. Their revenue sharing is nowhere near fair. Texas makes all the money, everyone else be darned. Guess what is going to happen when the Pac 10 makes their lucrative contract? LA=biggest market, those teams get the most money. Bay Area is next biggest market, they get more. Guess what that means? The newcomer from the smallest market gets nothing! Bottom of the barrel. When revenues get shared from the TV contract you better believe Utah will be getting shafted.

On the contrary, with the Boise State pickup, The Mountain was in a good position to take off in its markets as a TV contract. Utah would have had all the bargaining power then, being in the biggest market in the MWC and being at the top of the conference.

I’ll guaran-damn-tee you this: many people (like myself) will tune in to see how well they fare, week-in, week-out, against the big boys. Us fans of other non-AQ programs want to see them excel, because it would grant validity to the TCU’s, ECU’s and BSU’s out there.

You wanna look at it from a high-schooler’s P.O.V.? Then think about this: would you rather play for a program with at least a hypothetical shot at winning a national championship, or for one who has finished undefeated twice in the last decade and not even gotten a sniff?

And lastly, the MWC does NOT “control” LV, SD, or DFW, the PAC/Big 12 do. BYU’s influence over the state of Utah will likely wane with the U of U joining a more lucrative and prestigious conference, and that 2:1 ratio woul steadily become 1.8:1.2, then 1.6:1.4, then virtually even.