The weather has always been perfect. The city is big enough. The location — along the cliffs and beaches and mesas of Southern California — has always been desirable.
Yet across the decades San Diego State has sat outside the power structure of major college athletics, this potential gem covered up by administrative indifference, fan apathy, academic snobbery or, in its own odd way, a remote location that made only the Pac-12 conference a viable league.
How major college conferences could have programs in Starkville or Lubbock or Pullman — but not San Diego — is part of the uniqueness of the pursuit.