Does Boise deserve a shot?

Hi! Hello! Hi! Hey! Bit of a lull in the college football schedule this week, no offense to the Iowa/Arizona and Texas/Texas Tech lovers out there. Most LB readers probably have an interest in MSU/N**** D***, as do I, but in the grand national scheme of things, what’s another 1-2 start by the Irish really mean? Anyways, I’m going to jump about 3 months ahead on this topic, and try to answer the question…

Assuming they go undefeated, does Boise St. deserve a spot in the BCS title game?

Boise is currently #3 in the Coach’s Poll, which, unlike the AP, actually counts in the BCS standings. They started out with what was an impressive win over Virginia Tech in Tech’s backyard. Then Tech pulled a Michigan/App. St. with James Madison and tanked that win. They get Oregon State at home next week, and while Idaho is decent as far as the WAC goes, they really don’t have much of a challenge the rest of the way. This is the main argument against them… it’s way different having to play teams like Illinois and Arizona State each week, who can at least recruit enough players to have a chance at an upset, versus playing teams like Hawaii, Wyoming, etc.

The BCS could have actually put this theory to the test last year when Boise and TCU both got into the BCS bowl system. Then, due to some contractual obligations and “chance,” they ended up playing each other instead of each playing a major conference school. God forbid they both beat Iowa and Georgia Tech or something, then they might actually have to scrap this dumb system.

Anyways, we’re not here to rant about that. Back to the original question. Do they deserve a shot? The answer is simple:

I have no freaking clue, and neither does anyone else.

Wow, reeeeeeeeal, hopeful, LB. Well, do you? How do you know they wouldn’t beat Alabama? How do you know N**** D*** couldn’t beat them? Well, maybe not them. But what about Northwestern? Maryland? Oklahoma State? Our current system doesn’t really allow us to find out. You could have argued the Va. Tech win showed they could a couple weeks ago, but that’s down the crapper. Oregon St. is a nice team, but so is Penn State and look what Alabama did to them. What’s the line in a game on a neutral field between Penn State and Boise State? I think Boise -3, and I would bet Penn State every time.

What we have, as everyone knows, is a system problem. And people have been writing about this for years, so this is nothing new, and we’ll be addressing it again in LB’s second annual “Top 5 Most Ridiculous Bowl Games” column (the newly inaugurated Pinstripe Bowl is the early leader). But let’s take a quick look at some of the attempts to resolve this issue, just so I can rant a bit and educate some of my less obsessive sports fan readers. And because I want to make another list, it’s been way too long.

1. Boise could change conferences – they did! Great! They can compete against the big boys of… the Mountain West??? What the f*** were they thinking? I have no idea. I mean, they should have begged for a move to the Pac 10, which A. sucks, other than Oregon, and B. sucks even more because USC can’t recruit for a couple years and may not be able to pay their players for a couple years more. Oh well, wouldn’t want to do this the easy way, I guess.

2. Playoff system, using current bowl sites as game sites – great idea for the fans. Only one problem: then we wouldn’t have over half the teams in Division 1 (or whatever it’s called now… the Football Championship division? I don’t know) playing in bowl games, i.e., we wouldn’t have over half the teams in Division 1 making money by being in bowl games. Oh, they may tell you it’s about academic integrity or whatever, conveniently ignoring the fact that the NCAA tourney keeps kids out of school for weeks and that they just added more teams to the tournament, thereby jeopardizing more “student” athletes’ educations this spring. But it’s about cash. So’s everything else that doesn’t make sense, for that matter.

3. The “Plus One” system – there seems to be some traction for this, but it basically just amounts to a mini-tournament with four teams. And what do you do in this scenario: Alabama and Ohio State go undefeated, as does Boise State, and all other schools lose at least 1 game. Who gets the fourth spot? The fifth place team still gets screwed, right? You might even argue that having a bunch of one-loss teams being left out is worse than one undefeated team. I would.

Anyways, not much of this matters much, since the NCAA will do whatever it wants to do. To honestly answer the question, assuming that two major conference schools run the table, I don’t think Boise deserves a shot. A week ago, until Virginia Tech lost to JMU, I would have argued the other way. Sadly, Boise could have solved this problem by moving to the Pac 10, but it seems like the same people who run the NCAA may be running the Boise State athletic department.

This post was brought to you officially(!) by potatoes, because they can’t sue me. MLB playoff preview coming soon. Mystique.