Housekeeping Items.

Here at MWCConnection, we strive to provide the best coverage of the Mountain West Conference that we possibly can.

With that being said, I noticed some reoccurring misconceptions or misunderstandings between the writers and readers of the site. There are things even avid readers of the site may not be aware of, mainly because we do not specifically state them often, so they are easier to miss. This is an attempt to clear some things up and get on the same page. I will probably re-run this each year.

The Staff Make-up

We do have a relatively large team of writers with various styles and points of interest. However, this is not a full-time job for any of us. As you can imagine, writers are being given little to no money for their contributions (constantly trying to change that). Every one of us has something outside of a site that is more pressing, whether that is a full-time job, school, or a family. Going off of that, a number of our writers are college students honing their craft and may not have been following the history of the Mountain West or its teams as long as some of you, the readers.

Not covering a team as much as other teams does not mean we hate that team.

It is important to know how our site is structured. The vast majority of our staff are assigned to write about a specific team. These team writers are usually fans of that team, and some even attend the school. Our goal is always to have a writer for each of the 12 teams, but people come and go, and it’s hard to keep or replace writers at times. For whatever reason, we have been unable to keep writers for some teams over the years, although this year we are starting the season with 12 writers.

We don’t choose to intentionally not cover certain teams, and we don’t purposely prioritize one team over another. Our writers flow in and out of content, especially in the offseason. Just because one writer can’t post as much as another, we aren’t going to limit the more frequent writer. It is understandable how that can be mistaken for prioritizing content for one team over another, but that is not the case.

The Elephant in the Room: Boise State

Half of our readers think we cover Boise State entirely too much and do nothing but praise them. The other half of our readers think we hate the Broncos and snub the team and the players every chance we get. It is funny how people can read the same posts and come to vastly different conclusions. I examine this phenomenon and say we must be doing something right if both sides of the debate are upset.

The truth is, we view Boise State as we do any other team, contrary to popular belief. However, whether people love them or hate them, they are a good program. They have their flaws, they get some special treatment, and they also don’t win as much as they should. That all being said, they are more newsworthy than the average team, and when the news is occurring, they will get covered. It is also a fact that one of our more frequent writers writes about Boise State (but so do our Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, and SJSU writers. I have yet to hear any complaints about the frequency of their posts).

People may not realize it, but we do our best to promote those doing well or the bigger storylines. This site highlighted the surprisingly good recruiting classes San Jose State was accumulating even when they weren’t winning. We did a mini-series on how New Mexico should rebuild its program two summers ago.

Overall, we have been fortunate to always have a Boise State writer. While it is good we have had consistent content, it is not meant to be at the expense of consistent content for other teams. We aren’t going to tell our BSU writer not to write something just because we won’t have a corresponding post for another team. For those who enjoy reading it, great. For those who don’t, you can always wait for the next post.

Disagreeing Respectfully

None of us are going to pretend that all of our ideas and opinions are infallible. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong, but we base our posts on educated thoughts and opinions. Sometimes we are going to praise a team you hate and critique your favorite team. Does that mean we hate your team, or we are idiots? It does not.

Spoiler: Not everyone’s favorite team can go 12-0 with a conference championship. It’s okay if you’re team is critiqued and seen as imperfect. It’s okay if you disagree with some of the points. Fan how you want to fan, but let’s keep it in perspective. I have my opinions, and some end up being way off base. I do my best to admit when I am wrong. Fresno State in 2018, AFA in 2019, SJSU in 2020, and Utah State in 2021 come to mind as things I was wrong about.

I also remember being told directly and, in some cases rudely, how wrong I was and how I needed to do more research concerning my evaluations of some other teams. However, the facts remain that: UNLV will likely not be in the PAC 12 in 2024 (okay, this isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility). Utah State was not a better team without Jordan Love. Wyoming was not better after losing Josh Allen. Boise State does not look like a NY6 contender this upcoming season.

The point is that fans of a team will think higher of the team than the average person, and just because someone has an opinion that fans don’t like does not mean they are wrong. It also doesn’t make them automatically correct.

To conclude, this isn’t meant to call anyone out, but hopefully for everyone to give our posts and opinions more context and perspective. We try as hard as we can to make our site the best it can be and will continue to do so. Hopefully, all who read this post learned something, and I hope to learn something about some of you from any comments you leave explaining your perspective.