After a couple of years of uncertainty and shifting membership during the tumultuous conference realignment battles of 2010-2013, the Mountain West Conference finds itself in a position of relative stability these days.

With enough football playing members to hold a conference championship game and a new television contract offering more visibility on ESPN (and also including more money), the new Mountain West might be in the best shape it’s ever been.

When the league expands officially on July 1, it will split into two divisions based on geography, which naturally creates an unbalanced schedule. Also, schools that have road trips scheduled to Hawai’i have the option of adding an extra game to their schedule to help offset the travel cost (per NCAA regulations). Only Colorado State will play an extra game this season, so they have five non-conference games on tap.

Without further ado, let’s see how the schedules stack up for the Mountain West Conference.

Boise State is looking for its next feature back with D.J. Harper off to the NFL. (Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports - Brian Losness)

In 2012 the Mountain West Conference produced eight runners who topped 1,000 yards on the ground, tied with the Big Ten for second-most among all conferences and trailing only the SEC, which had nine. The league’s two newcomers, San Jose State and Utah State, also had 1,000-yard rushers a year ago.

Last season’s leading rusher, Stefphon Jefferson of Nevada, returns. Five of 10, however, have now matriculated: Fresno State’s Robbie Rouse, Air Force’s Cody Getz, Boise State’s D.J. Harper, USU’s Kerwynn Williams and SJSU’s De’Leon Eskridge. That leaves a whole mess of contenders for the conference title now searching for replacements as their featured back.

If one of those five squads can find a workhorse, it might make the difference in winning the Mountain West. Here's a look at how each situation is shaping up.

The good folks at ESPN Boise graciously invited CBR's Kevin McGuire to come on The Ballgame with Rick & Johnny to discuss the upcoming season in the Mountain West.

Topics included:

*Joe Southwick's development as Boise State's quarterback

*The changing of the guard at Nevada

*And more.

(Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.)

The Boise State Broncos will begin the 2013 season exactly as they finished the 2012 season: a date with Washington.

The Huskies, the erstwhile leviathan of the top left quadrant of the country, have ceded that throne in the past decade to both Pac-12 foe Oregon and, of course, Boise State. Kudos to Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian for agreeing to this August 31 season opener, in Seattle, against Chris Petersen’s crew. In seven seasons in Idaho’s state capitol, Petersen is 84-8 (.913). Knute Rockne, who has the best Division I winning percentage of all time (.881), was on the job for 13 seasons in South Bend before a plane crash claimed his life.

True, Boise State does not play in the Southeastern Conference. But Petersen, who will not turn 49 until the day after the Broncos visit Utah State (Oct. 12), is in the midst of an historic tenure. Last season was a down campaign for Boise State as it lost two games by a total of six points to finish 11-2. In the year 1 A.K. (After Kellen), the Broncos failed to score at least 50 points in a game for the first time since 1996 (the coach was Pokey Allen).

Ault leads Nevada before his final game after 28 years at the helm in 2012.
(Photo Courtesy - USA Today Sports/Mark Rebilas)

We're in the midst of "Mountain West Preview" week here at CBR so it's perhaps only right that the news breaks out of Reno, Nevada that the Wolfpack will honor coaching legend and the man who put Nevada football on the map, Chris Ault, by naming the field at Mackay Stadium after him. 

"Chris Ault has left an indelible footprint on the University of Nevada, Wolf Pack Athletics and college football, and it is only fitting that his name will grace the field on which he built that legacy of success and tradition," Nevada Director of Athletics Doug Knuth said. "We are pleased that we can honor Coach Ault for his Hall of Fame career and service to the University in this lasting way."

Ault may not be a name every college football fan knows by heart, but we can guarantee that you've seen his influence across the scope of football, probably without ever knowing it. He's the man behind the "Pistol" offense - a scheme that is now in use from pee-wee football all the way to the NFL - and already is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. 

(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Images)

While the Mountain West doesn’t have a true National Championship contender like the American (Louisville) or a catchy nickname like #MACtion, make no mistake, there will be plenty of quality football played when this conference’s teams take the field in 2013. Along with three clubs which finished the 2012 season with at least nine wins (Boise State, Fresno State and San Diego State) the league will also welcome two 11-win clubs from the WAC, when Utah State and San Jose State join the fold in 2013.

It also means that there will be no shortage of talented players.

As we did with our American preview two weeks ago, let’s take a look at the players you need to watch out for entering the 2013 Mountain West season.

BCS executive director Bill Hancock has said before that the four-team playoff model that will begin being used in the 2014 season is locked in with four teams through the 12 years of the new format contract. But how long until that playoff pool expands, as many seem to believe is bound to happen at some point now that the door to a playoff has been opened? Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson suggested it could be expanded before 2026, despite Hancock's previous statements.

"I'm probably in the minority in that I don't know we're going to stay at four [teams] for the next 12 years," Thompson said during an interview with SiriusXM College Sports Nation on Tuesday (quoted by CBS Sports). "I know that's what the contracts say and everybody's following the script these days. We'll see. Who knows where we'll be down the road."

Paul Finebaum is coming back to radio later this summer.

Paul Finebaum, the voice of the SEC, is returning to radio August 1. Finebaum has been off the air for the past four months after his previous contract expired. Now, Finebaum will begin emerging as  a national radio voice for ESPN with a carefully structured roll out covering the next year of Finebaum's show.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Finebaum will have a significant presence in the ESPN family. His nationally-syndicated radio show will begin airing in the southeast first, his natural home field in radio. Over time the show will be spread t other markets and eventually will be simulcast on ESPN's SEC Network starting in August 2014. On top of that, Finebaum will have a reported 100 television appearances on ESPN programming. Finebaum has been a recurring panelist on ESPN's Outside the Lines program, so he could be expected to continue popping up there from time to time. We should also count on seeing Finebaum have an appearance on some of ESPN's college football programming when possible, including the weekday College Football Live program. I think it is safe to say once the SEC Network goes live, Finebaum will have a voice in addition to his radio simulcast.

If you are like me, you might be wondering just how much of Finebaum's show will remain untouched and how much will be changed.

(Photo Courtesy: @CoachArtBriles)

Over the past few seasons, Art Briles has quietly positioned himself as one of the most underrated coaches in all of college football.

Sure, some of it was thanks to a magical, RGIII-induced 10-win season in 2011. But when you evaluate the big-picture, it’s really so much more than that.

It’s about three-straight seven-win seasons, the first time that’s happened at Baylor since 1949-1951.

Here at Crystal Ball Run, we often joke that sometimes, the world of college football really does seem stranger than fiction. Only for ESPN analyst Ed Cunningham, his life is almost the exactly opposite; the wacky world of Les Miles and conference realignment is nothing compared to the work he does away from the football field.

That’s because when Cunningham isn’t sitting in a press box every fall Saturday, he spends his hours on Monday through Friday as a noted documentary film producer. Cunningham’s IMDB page is pretty extensive, with work on such prominent titles as “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” and the Academy Award winning “Undefeated” about a Memphis-area high school football team.

Yet it’s the film that Cunningham is currently working on- and needs your help to complete- which is his wackiest yet. It’s called “Finders Keepers” and well, it redefines the term “stranger than fiction.”