Don't Start Celebrating Just Yet

So, you just watched the SJSU game on ESPN a couple of days ago and thought, "Wow, our team is pretty good!" You looked at our record, noticed we have a winning streak going, and thought, "Hey, our team has finally turned the corner!" You took a look at the WAC standings and saw that we have a 1/2 game lead on Boise State for the WAC championship, thus making us #1 in our conference. You took a look at all of this, smiled, and said, "Ah, those FireChrisAult guys, they don't know what they're talking about."

You also thought Fox News and Rush Limbaugh would stop broadcasting after Obama won in November, didn't you? Oh, you sad, naive fool...

In all seriousness, we're pretty happy here with the Wolf Pack's performance since the beginning of October. We are Wolf Pack fans, after all, and, though we're obviously not big fans of the Aulternator, even we'll agree that a broken clock can be right twice a day. However, we're also a little more realistic about where we are. To help illustrate our current state of affairs, let's compare a couple of teams:

• One team has a half game lead in its conference. The other team is only a half game behind the leader.
• Both teams have six wins.
• Both teams have scored more than 40 points twice in their last three games.
• Both teams have only played one team with a winning record since October 1st.
  
• Neither team has played the two most powerful teams in their conference.
• Both teams will play one of their traditional conference powerhouses at home, but will have to play the traditional top dog on the road.
  

One of those teams is, of course, us. The other is Arizona, which still has Oregon (at home) and USC (on the road) on their schedule. How do you think Arizona fans are feeling right now? Heck, Arizona's #17 in the country this week, so I imagine they're pretty happy. Now, what do you think Arizona's chances really are against Oregon and USC? Do you think the Wildcats are going to the Rose Bowl?

Right.

The good news, of course, is that Fresno State is no Oregon and Boise State is no USC, though Boise State has been doing a pretty decent impression these days. However, Fresno State's only loss in the WAC was against Boise State, and its other two losses this year were to a freakishly good Cincinnati team and to a Wisconsin team that always plays tough at home. In other words, this isn't San Jose State we're playing. These guys are good and they're used to playing tough, physically demanding teams. We're not going to push forward with 8-10 yard runs without contact like we did on Sunday.

Thankfully, the rest of the WAC is absolutely pitiful this year, so the worst we'll finish is 7-5, assuming we take care of business against New Mexico State. Assuming Boise State beats Idaho, that would put us third in the conference with all of the tiebreakers in our favor, which means we'd either be going to New Mexico or Hawaii again. For fairly obvious reasons, the Humanitarian Bowl would either take Boise State or Idaho, depending on whether Boise State gets a bid somewhere else or not. So, provided we take care of business in a couple of weeks against NMSU, we'll still go to a bowl game, Ault and his fans will pat each other on their backs, and everybody will sit back, relax, and pretend our program is right where it should be.

That said, if we lose to Fresno State at home, we're not where we should be. It just means we're the best of the worst of the WAC. The WAC is a three horse race every single year. Which horse will we be this time around?

We'll find out on Saturday.