The Mountain West Conference’s dream of joining the BCS seemed to finally be within reach.

Two teams had already left the Big 12, five more seemed headed out the door and the Mountain West was ready to pick up the scraps, add the high-profile schools needed to earn an automatic bid from the BCS.

Then Texas turned down the Pac-10 and the rest of the Big 12 followed.

Now, the Mountain West is done with the stomach-twisting nervousness of conference expansion.

With Boise State on board and Utah officially on its way west to the Pac-10, the conference will compete as a nine-team league for the forseeable future.

If the Mountain West is going to join the BCS bonanza, it will have to earn it by winning on the football field – just the way it has in the past.

“It’s a similar to an analogy to a football game: It’s third-and-1 and you’re going to pick it up, then you fumble the ball and someone returns it 85 yards the other way for a touchdown,” Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said Thursday. “You regroup and figure, now what do we do?”

The decision is to do nothing.

Swapping Boise State and Utah was essentially a wash. The Mountain West loses a big chunk of the Salt Lake City market with the loss of the Utes – though there are still BYU fans and a few from Boise State mixed in – but gains a Broncos program that has won the Fiesta Bowl twice in the past four years.

There were chances to add more. Thompson said amid the conference-swapping chaos of the past few weeks, he received eight or 10 inquiries from schools hoping to join the Mountain West.

While they appreciated the interest, Mountain West officials were looking for bigger names to go across the marquee, namely Big 12 castoffs.