SAN DIEGO — It appears quite possible Horatio Alger is about to come through the transfer portal.
With its jalopy stalled in the dark Mountain West tunnel since 1999, San Diego State finally has managed (through remarkable circumstances beyond its control) to hire a mechanic who had a radical set of tools to fix it, and possibly get it the hell out of there.
Perhaps most incredible of all, it has gone from seeker to sought.
For once, the Aztecs are wanted. They may even get involved in a bidding war.
The university last week reportedly sent a notice to the league office saying that it "intends to resign from the Mountain West Conference." It's not cast in concrete, but State has asked for a one-month extension, the MW having imposed a June 30 deadline to schools who may wish to leave for a Power 5 conference.
I don't have the space to get into the details, but this had to happen. I assume people will disagree with this alum's feeling on the enormity of it, but I firmly believe that, despite the new stadium, the football program was/is in danger of losing its Division I status.
It was 20 years ago that then-athletic director Rick Bay, the man who hired Steve Fisher, told me he didn't know how much longer the football program could remain with the big kids.
There wasn't much money then and there isn't much more now. Although men's basketball sells out, the football team continues to lack enough viewers, despite the new Snapdragon Stadium. Winning games doesn't seem to matter with the public.
Football has been the opposite of entertaining, and it is the conductor that runs the money train.
The conference's TV deals have been far more chaotic than lucrative. And money is what matters, as usual.
Which is where the exit visa comes in. Since USC and UCLA have bolted to the Big Ten, the Pac-12 has been working on a TV deal that, no matter what, if completed, will be much larger than the Mountain West's.
That leaves the Far West's only Power 5 conference without a Division I football presence in California south of Palo Alto. There are 24 million people living in Southern California, where college prospectors go to find prospects.
And that leaves the Pac-12 with one Division I football choice in this part of the world. Which is why the Big 12 also is interested in SDSU. That league is losing its two greatest football programs — Texas and Oklahoma — to the SEC.
The biggest — and perhaps the only — question is: Can the Pac-12 stand? There has been talk Colorado and Arizona see a sinking ship and are contemplating jumping to the Big 12. Everything depends on the Pac-12 working out a TV deal.
Good teams remain in the conference, but it is losing the No. 2 television market in America, and what does that mean? Simple. It not only loses its two greatest names, but, of course, money. There won't be as much.
But a lot more than the Mountain West can ever hope to offer.
There is a gamble here. If the Pac-12 disintegrates, schools such as Oregon, Washington and Stanford are going to become big-name mules chasing the carrot.
So SDSU can't afford to wait.
State has been smart enough to somehow survive being deliberately air-gunned out of the big picture since 1969, when it decided to be a small college no more. It wanted to move up, but although football, the lifeblood, remained very good throughout the '70s after Don Coryell turned pro, it couldn't even get to a bowl game with 11-1 records.
Always standing in the way were the Trojans and Bruins, who historically recruit San Diego heavily, and never were going to allow State into the Pac-12.
Now, with L.A. out of the photo, this is the Aztecs' long-awaited inning, and at the very least it has the top of its lineup coming to the plate. But the chickens remain in their eggs and shouldn't be counted on to hatch on the right side of the coop.
Still, if Athletic Director JD Wicker and university President Adela de la Torre are indeed shuffling toward the MW exit, and I believe they are, they're not doing so blindfolded.
Right now, the conferences may not only want San Diego State, but need San Diego State.
And San Diego State sure as hell needs them.
