Bless its hateful soul.

Or, at least, it should be, in the words of Miracle Max, mostly dead. It needs to be, as a matter of practicality.

May it rest in pieces.

And the BCS, the Evil Empire, is what did the killing, the slicing and dicing.

It is the institutional Ginzu knife in an all-new wacky scenario brought to you not by Ronco, but by the folks whose grubby little fingers control college football's postseason. Their proposed policy for amending who gets into the BCS bowls suddenly includes for the so-called lesser conferences a darn-near Biblical provision, a love-thy-neighbor clause, that makes it absolutely counterproductive to root against league opponents.

No matter how much they deserve it.

Loathing your rival to the north or the south, hoping for the other guys to not only lose, but to get their teeth kicked in and their digits snapped off by whomever they play, especially nonconference foes, is like blowing off your own body parts.

The strong waves of negative emotion that swell around here between the blue and the red, if they continue, will bring with them a number of revelations, foremost among them, whether fans like their own team more than they despise their enemy, or, as a lot of BYU fans have presumptively claimed for many years about Ute fans, it's really the other way around.

"BYU should root for Utah to win every week, and vice versa," says Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson. "We have to cheer for each other in this conference versus, say, the SEC, where teams can hope for their rivals to get their brains beaten in, because they have the advantage that their champion gets an automatic bid, regardless."

In its attempt to keep alive its egocentric justification for existing, when a playoff is the real answer, the BCS has concocted a semi-fresh plan that factors and feigns greater equality by considering a lesser conference's overall strength in its formula for rating the worthiness of bowl participants.

Exactly how values for that factoring will be conjured and

assigned is, as always, a problematic process. Even though it won't be just the top teams in a league that will be evaluated, those top teams and their performances will be considered, as well. An 11-member committee that completed meetings this week in Phoenix concluded that the number of teams from a conference ranked in the BCS top 25 over a four-year period will be considered in awarding automatic berths.

The whole of it means, in more concrete terms than ever before, that teams from less-major/less-equal conferences, such as the Mountain West, must project themselves as more competitively capable. That's been the case since the inception of the BCS, but now Utah and BYU are linked in a kind of uncomfortable hate-you-love-you do-si-do, as others judge them from afar. The new deal is like disingenuous friends holding it against a buddy for bringing an uncomely date to the prom.

As the marquee football programs in the MWC, those two schools are highlighted even more, on account of the matters of perception, by those who dole out the aforementioned values that determine the Utes' and Cougars' postseason fates.

Under this scenario, only the arrogant or the obviously and exceptionally superior can presume to make it to a BCS bowl without help from league-mates. Utah fit the latter category this past season and got in. Starting next year, the MWC champ essentially has to finish in the BCS top 12, and it's more likely to do that if the league is strong. In most years, the better the standard bearers, the high-profile programs, the better the result for the individual schools.

Which means that lions and lambs, or, more aptly, lions and tigers, Hatfields and McCoys, Utes and Cougars, must coexist and thrive to the benefit of both.

I know, I know, it hurts. The world's gone crazy.

Utah fans must root, and mean it, for BYU when it plays Boston College and Notre Dame and Eastern Illinois, and maybe even when it plays a few conference opponents. And BYU fans must genuinely reciprocate and cheer on the Utes when they face Arizona and North Carolina and Utah State, among others.

Strange but true.

Blame it on the BCS. None of this sunshine-blowing hand-holding would be necessary if a playoff were sanctioned, if justification for a flawed and contrived and unjustifiable postseason were plain, and thereby, unnecessary. Then, the joyous contempt could rightfully and perennially go on and on.

Bad news is, it can't.

The only reason to hate your neighbor now is if you and your team are miserable and you and your team are desperate for company.

"BYU should root for Utah to win every week, and vice versa. We have to cheer for each other in this conference versus, say, the SEC."

CRAIG THOMPSON

Mountain West Commissioner