Coming off a disappointing weekend that saw then-No. 7 BYU lose to Florida State and Oregon snap Utah's 16-game winning streak, the Mountain West Conference turns its hopes for a Bowl Championship Series bowl bid to No. 15 TCU.
But Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson wants none of that talk -- and least not this early in the season.
"I have never been one of those guys that talks about the BCS," Patterson said during Tuesday's Mountain West Coaches teleconference. "I have always been, you know, you gotta win your conference championship first, and like I have said many times, even before the season started: Every year is a different year for the conference."
While the Utes and Cougars are now past their most difficult nonconference opponents, TCU faces its toughest test on Saturday. The Horned Frogs (2-0) travel to Death Valley to take on Clemson, which is unranked but receiving votes in the AP Top 25 poll.
"We haven't been thinking about the BCS here, anyway," Patterson said. "The biggest thing for us is we are trying to win one game at a time. We have an unbelievable Clemson team [on Saturday]. They may be as talented a team as we have seen since Oklahoma a year ago."
The Frogs lost that game, 35-10, and Patterson said that's another reason why any BCS talk is premature for TCU.
"You have to win a lot of football games between now and November and December to have a chance to talk about the BCS, so for us, what we are trying to do is try to get to 3-0 some way going on the road."
Knowing they had road games at Virginia, Clemson, BYU, Wyoming and Air Force this season, the Frogs chose the slogan "Don't Back Down" this year.
Chiming in
For what it's worth, BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall and Utah coach Kyle Whittingham have said after the losses Saturday that they never talked to their teams about the BCS, either. Mendenhall began getting tons of questions about it after BYU beat Oklahoma.
The BCS has "never been our focal point," Whittingham said. "Our focal point is winning the Mountain West Conference."
It was the first time since Sept. 9, 2007 that BYU and Utah have lost on the same day.
Mendenhall said the bad weekend shouldn't erase what the conference has done the past few years.
"Because we are pushing so hard for respectability and national recognition, all we have done is make the spotlight on us brighter," he said. "That is good, regardless, because we have earned the light. ... Now that we are being considered, the naysayers, anytime we play a [non-conference] matchup and don't play well, will be excited about it. But I still believe the body of work, the amount of games we are still successful with as a league will end up standing the test of time."
Altitude? What altitude?
San Diego State travels to altitude this week to face Air Force in Colorado Springs, but new coach Brady Hoke -- perhaps following the lead of Florida State's Bobby Bowden last week against BYU -- says he won't make a big deal of it to his players.
"Probably more is made of it than there really is," Hoke said. "We're not, as a staff, really concerned about that."
Briefly
Wyoming was shut out 24-0 by Colorado last week, and coach Dave Christensen says his starting quarterback now will be true freshman Austyn Carta-Samuels . ... A bright spot for New Mexico in its 37-13 loss to Air Force was the play of sophomore running back James Wright , who had touchdown runs of 43 and 84 yards after not touching the ball the first two games. ... TCU's Patterson said that in 2005, eight of his team's 11 defensive linemen were former tailbacks in high school.
