When Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson asserted early in the conference's now-notorious football media preview last week that the conference was as recognizable — if not more so — as the rival Mountain West, it caused a stir.

Especially, coming as it did in Salt Lake City, smack dab among MWC faithful.

Which is another reason why the suggestion that the WAC and MWC work toward a matchup of their champions in the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl sounds like a good one.

Perhaps it even makes too much sense, because, for all its merits, it doesn't seem like it is getting any traction.

Benson's proposal, first reported on http://www.ESPN.com yesterday, has drawn a cold shoulder from both the bowl and the MWC. Both said yesterday they are not pursuing it.

Too bad.

Imagine the excitement some season with, for example, an 11-2 Hawai'i and 10-2 Brigham Young meeting in the Las Vegas Bowl. Or, similarly achieving Boise State vs. Utah. Think those type of pairings wouldn't pack the place and jack up some television ratings for ESPN Regional Television, which owns and operates the game?

Certainly they portend better matchups than the MWC champion against, say, the fourth-place or fifth- place Pac-10 team, which is what Vegas might otherwise get. Currently the Pac-10 lineup is led off by the Rose, Holiday and Sun bowls with the Las Vegas and Emerald bowls after that.

But the Pac-10 bowl lineup is due for change beginning in 2010 and there are ways it could work for all concerned. Well, most of them, anyway.

Under one suggestion, if the WAC and MWC champions were both nationally ranked in the Top 20 but not invited to Bowl Championship Series games they could be matched in the Las Vegas Bowl. The Pac-10 could, instead, send a representative to one of the other bowls with a WAC or MWC tie-in and an opening.

Who knows, maybe one near you, such as the Sheraton Hawai'i Bowl, for example?

In that it could be a win-win here with a Pac-10 team playing UH once in a while in the seasons when the Warriors aren't ranked, or UH is going to Vegas in the case when it might be ranked and the WAC champ.

Of course, the Hawai'i Bowl's owner, ERT, might not be too thrilled about parting with the Warriors in a year in which UH qualified. The bowl suffered with UH's Sugar Bowl absence and in the 2005 season in which the Warriors weren't bowl-eligible.

The WAC's best vs. the top of the MWC in a bragging rights bowl game? That's too promising of a concept not to give some serious thought to.