LAS VEGAS — For two days in the desert, no ill words were exchanged.
During the Mountain West football media days at the Circa Resort, head coaches Ken Niumatalolo of San Jose State, Dan Mullen of UNLV, Bronco Mendenhall of Utah State, Jay Norvell of Colorado State and Troy Calhoun offered advice to the younger coaches.
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“If there’s anything I can share to benefit a young coach in his career, I’d not only see it as an opportunity, I see it as an obligation and a blessing to be able to pass it on, ” Mendenhall said.
Commissioner Gloria Nevarez began her state-of-the-conference address with a video of the past year’s highlights.
There was no unease with the coaches of the five schools seceding from the 26-year-old Mountain West to join the Pac-12 next July.
There was no mention of the $18 million apiece in exit fees billed to Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. Nor the $55 million in poaching penalties assessed to Oregon State and Washington State, the current holdovers after 10 schools abandoned the Pac-12 last year. Nor the lawsuits claiming the fees are excessive and imposed through coercion.
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The lawyers were not invited to the event.
Nevada coach Jeff Choate said if left to the coaches, a favorable resolution would have been reached.
“Instead we have to go through this divorce and create all these weird feelings, ” Choate said. “I tell you this, the coaches’ room is pretty united. I think they maybe should have put us in the room (to decide on schools changing conferences ). I feel bad for football on the West Coast. I think football on the West Coast is better with Nevada, Boise, Fresno in the same league.”
SDSU coach Sean Lewis said there’s a “great fellowship among the coaches. We know we’re in a tremendous league, and we want to make this an historic season for the league. We want to be part of that, and not just a role player. We’re all handshakes and smiles. We’re all friends right now. Give us about a month and we’ll be yelling across the sidelines at one another.”
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For now, the coaches have universal concerns. There are two transfer portal windows—in December and late spring. But because of a House vs. NCAA settlement, football rosters are limited to 105. With hundreds of players being cut to get under the limit, the NCAA is allowing the released players to seek other schools, in essence, creating a third transfer-portal window.
An NCAA exemption allows teams to place scholarship players who would have been cut on a “designated student-athlete ” list. Those players on the list are “uncut, ” and exempted from the roster limit. Because UH starts the season a week ahead, coach Timmy Chang was scrambling to adjust the roster for Wednesday’s opening of training camp. For now, UH has a tentative roster of 111, with six expected to be on the designated list.
