COLUMN: USU will need 9 wins to get into bowl as independent

The Utah State University football team is now classified as a Division IA Independent team. What does that mean? No more conference rivalry games. No more conference championship games.

Independent teams tend to get less attention than conference teams because there is no one for them to beat for a championship. They just need to win games. Nine to be exact. If we can get nine wins this year, then we’ll be eligible to receive invites to bowl games. If we were in a conference, then we would only need seven wins. In college, football bowl game wins mean a lot.

How did we end up as an independent? The different college conferences seem to change so much no one can really keep it straight.

Let me explain.

The Western Athletic Conference is a coveted conference by the standard of most college football teams. In fact, the WAC has expanded so much that it had 16 teams at one point. These teams included BYU and the University of Utah.

Naturally, USU would have liked to complete the Utah rivalry trio. At the time, USU was in the Big West Conference – we still are, in every other sport. The WAC has picked up various teams like University of Northern Las Vegas, San Jose State, Fresno State and most recently, Boise State depleting the Big West. The snowball effect turned the Big West into an extremely liquid conference. So, smart people forming a new conference – called the Sun Belt – came along and offered an invite to USU and other Big West competitors to be in their conference. At the time, there was still a good possibility we would be invited to be a part of the WAC, as they were picking up a few more teams because of all the teams leaving their conference, so we turned down the Sun Belt offer. It turns out, the offer from the WAC never came through, which leaves us where we are today – independent.

Confused yet? Me, too.

An independent team has some advantages. There are a lot of teams we wouldn’t have been able to play had we been tied down to other conference games.

We travel to locations all over the U.S. to play different games.

The bad thing is it’s hard to survive as an independent. An independent team is always scrapping to find games to play toward the end of the season because most teams are tied up in conference competition.

“The only goals you have are individual goals rather than team and conference goals. [On the other hand] you get to travel a lot and play a variety of teams,” said Jimmy Moore, associate director of recruitment and enrollment services. Moore was also a former USU basketball forward.

The fact of the matter is it’s difficult to help a program grow and develop competitively as an independent.

Teams like Notre Dame can survive and have. The Aggies have a unique challenge in getting competitive teams to come to Logan in order to build a program that can survive.

How do we do that?

We’ve got to win some big ball games such as the recently rescheduled Fresno State on Dec. 1. Defeating Louisiana State on Sept. 8 would also have been needed in order to get the late-season games we need. Otherwise, independent teams just play each other to survive.

Another challenge is the motivation of the player and coaches. Late in the season it may be impossible to get the nine wins needed for a bowl bid, so how important are the last games of the season?

“The real motivation is to win and that’s what it is always going to be. The desire to win doesn’t change whether it’s the first or the last game of the season,” USU tight end Casey Poppinga said.

All athletes should feel the pride and desire that comes from winning. A real athlete will play hard wherever and against whoever.

However, there is no game that can replace the many overtime conference championship wins when stakes are high and heroes are made. Many athletes do the impossible, motivated by the importance of a win.

When the pressure is on, you find out what you’re made of and USU needs that pressure. So let’s play hard and find a competitive conference to grow in.

Ryan Malnar is a junior majoring in business administration. Comments can be sent to malnar@cc.usu.edu