Mountain West Conference splits into divisions

Not to be out done by the Conference USA's re-alignment, the Mountain West Conference has shuffled the deck a bit as well. The MWC got a boost recently when Boise State and San Diego State decided to back off of their exit, to the Big East, and stay with the conference. The conference adds two former-WAC schools in San Jose State (11-2 in 2012) and Utah State (11-2 in 2012). For the 2013 season, the conference will split into two divisions, the Mountain and the West. Sounds a lot better than the leaders and legends, doesn't it? Here is what the new divisional alignments will look like in 2013:

There is really nothing that I don't like about the additions of these two teams and the decision to break into divisions other than it looks like Boise State got the easy side of the conference (at least for now). Over the last three years, the Broncos have lost one conference game each year. One of those teams (TCU) is now in the Big 12 and the other two (Nevada and San Diego State) find themselves in the West division while Boise will reside in the Mountain. However, there still is a 50% chance each year that Boise will play those teams as they will play five divisional games per year and three cross-divisional games for a total of eight conference games per year. 

The conference will also add a Championship Game which I think will help the conference. Playing three cross-divisional games will make the likelihood of a re-match bigger but it will also provide another quality win for the school who goes on to win the Championship. Overall, there really isn't a lot that I don't like about the new MWC and if Utah State and San Jose State can keep their trajectory going (they need to remain competitive even if they aren't going 11-2 every year) it will help the conference out.