Big, sad week for Mountain West football, BYU and TCU

What good are your partners if they don’t show up for work, dress for the game, or do any due diligence as a pal?

That’s the sad case of DirecTV and Versus (Comcast), who agreed to be corporate broadcast partners with the Mountain West when the league’s presidents signed on with them to do their games instead of ESPN.

Now, ESPN, which is the network not chosen, has recognized this week’s BYU-TCU game as the most important contest of the week by sending its front line team and GameDay set to Provo Saturday for the Cougar-Frog contest. It’s the only game between ranked teams his week.

And DirecTV won’t allow its broadcast on Versus, the so-called MWC partner, to air the game through it’s nationwide distribution on dish.

Why? Because the two parties are waiting for the other one to blink.

Stupid.

It is spitting in the face of MWC presidents who told Commissioner Craig Thompson to sign on with this deal. They did it for more money and they did it so they wouldn’t have to play on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays. They did it because they trusted the song and dance they were told by their so-called TV friends.

Somebody lied.

I think the MWC presidents, through Thompson, should sue these partners. With friends like these, who needs enemies? They breached the contract and are not performing. Yes, they paid the rights fee to air these games, but they are not airing the games the way they said they would.

I asked Bronco Mendenhall this morning how it made him feel, that ESPN, which is not in the mix as a MWC partner, will be here in Provo recognizing this as a big game, but the MWC broadcast partners were still squabbling over some coin.

He agreed it was frustrating.

“A positive sign is that (ESPN)GameDay is coming. I think that is earned, it’s not a random selection. Our program and TCU’s program have played at a high enough level that there is intrigue,” said Mendenhall.

And the squabble?

“I do have feelings about it. There’s a level of perception and a level of what’s going on and what’s at stake and here the major entity that covers college football is recognizing this matchup and going out of their way to find the very best way to draw attention to it.

“You’d think that would have been the philosophy held by others, especially our partners. If that is not the case, I’d be alarmed and think something is wrong,” said Mendenhall.

It is wrong. It is also stupid.

If DirecTV and Comcast can’t find a way to marry this game up on Versus, they should relinquish their rights to do the game and somehow allow ESPN to do it live on Saturday.

Of course that is not going to happen. But the principle is right.

In a sense, it is a direct ESPN challenge — and may be exactly that — to the Mountain West Conference who nixed ESPN four years ago.

The ESPN message is clear: If you MWC dolts don’t recognize how big this game is, we do. We are the professional TV people who should be highlighting TCU, BYU and Utah, not you airheads. You guys fill your suits and talk a big talk but you end up cheating your constituents. Let the record show exactly what you guys are capable of not doing when it counts.

If I were a MWC president at TCU, BYU or Utah, I’d by burning the phone lines this week.

Why? Because this is making all of you look like fools.