OCR Text |
Show g ;: mm ; ' " " :' :h " ; ' . mi I Crimson Comments 1 i By BRUCE ROBERTS Chronicle Sports Editor Never before has a single athletic season brought in so much prestige to the Western Athletic Conference. The 1967 football season has brought the national gridiron limelight to the Mountain West, where WAC teams have played out of their heads for the past five weeks all over the nation. People stirred in their seats when Utah pushed Minnesota all over the field before losing a hard-fought 13-12 battle. Then, as usual in such cases, the word spread that Minnesota was a flop this season. But don't tell the Gophers that, or their last three opponents for that matter. On consecutive weeks, Minnesota has mauled SMU, Illinois and perenial power pow-er Michigan State by rather lopsided scores. So now the Gophers are sitting on top in the Big Ten, still wondering how they squecked past that Redskin team five weeks ago. WAC Heads East Aweek later four WAC teams headed east to face Midwest powers and two others stayed home to host rugged opposition. When the dust cleared, the WAC had really earned a name for itself. The most unbelievable unbe-lievable victory was supplied by Arizona, who pounded a massive Ohio State team into their own home ground, 14-7. Meanwhile, not far away, sister school Arizona State was chopping the Badgers of Wisconsin to bits by a 42-14 count. Also a hop-skip and a jump away were the Cougars of BYU, who were running up a 44-14 rout of Western Michigan. Even New Mexico did a creditable job against Iowa State before dropping a 17-12 battle. At this time in the mountain west, Wyoming fought off a determined Colorado State threat to win, 13-10. And in Ute Stadium, Coach Mike Giddings' Utes were crushing Oregon, 21-0. Suddenly, people were standing up to take notice. The WAC was dishing out defeats like they were going out of style. Wyoming was creeping up on the top ten, Arizona was preparing for another assault on a national power in Minnesota, and Arizona State was en route to another smashing non-conference victory over UTTP. Utah and Wyoming came up with impressive conference wins in the third week of action, and grid fans were realizing that the 1967 WAC gridders were definitely powerful contenders. Bubble Hasn't Burst Now, five weeks later, the bubble still hasn't burst. BYU traveled to Corvalis and pulled a stunning upset over Oregon State. So the Beavers turn right around the next week and run over second-ranked Purdue, who just finished knocking off national champion Notre Dame. Oh, if only the Cougars could have scheduled the Fighting Irish this year! This week's UPI polls ranked Wyoming eighth in the nation, the highest ranking eve rreceived by a Western Athletic Conference school. WAC teams have compiled a 12-7-1 mark against non-conference opponents, oppon-ents, which is camparatively the best in the nation. The conference title race, as usual, appears to be another dog fight, and two of the nations top statistical clubs, Arizona State and Wyoming, meet head on this Saturday Sat-urday to battle for the league lead. Non-conference prestige is still on tap as well, as future schedules feature Army, Indiana, and Air Force in top intersectional clashes. Nation Has Respect The nation can only respect the performance of every squad in the Western Athletic Conference. Facing grueling schedules and once again battling down to the wire for a conference champion, the WAC has truly impressed everyone in contact with the sport. If there was ever a year that the WAC officially became known from coast to coast as a major conference, this is it. |