You see an anonymous Big 12 coach pop off in Athlon about how it's "a relief that Whittingham is out" at Utah and I just have to laugh. That right there tells you everything about what this conference has become. We spent decades building rivalries on respect and hard-nosed football and now we got coaches taking shots at each other in preseason magazines like it's a reality show. Coach Sullivan would have never said a word about another program in public. He would have just lined up and run the damn option right down your throat and shook your hand after the game.
I remember when the Mountain West had real identity. We knew who we were. We knew who Utah was. Those games in the late 2000s against the Utes meant something because both programs had history and pride and guys who stayed four years and built something. Now Whittingham is out and you got anonymous assistants chirping about it and I am supposed to believe this conference has any sense of tradition left. The Big 12 was supposed to be this great reunion of old rivals and instead we got a bunch of programs treating each other like temporary coworkers at a job nobody wants to be at.
The portal killed this. You cannot have continuity when half the roster turns over every winter. Oklahoma State brinsg in 50 transfers and Colorado brings in 43 and everyone acts like that is normal. It is not normal. It is a circus. And now we got coaches badmouthing each other in magazines like it is a gossip column instead of a football preview. Gary Patterson would have never allowed that nonsense. He respected what Whittingham built even when we were battling them for conference titles. That is what I miss. That is what is gone.