Sideline Pass

Whenever college football is the subject of conversation, some type of argument or disagreement is always likely to occur. But for once there is one thing everyone can agree on.

Right when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the BCS found a way to one-up itself.

Whether you’re a Boise State fan or not, there is no denying the Broncos had a good case to be invited to the Fiesta Bowl to take on Texas. But whether you liked it or not, you knew what would happen.

The selection of No. 10 Ohio State as the at-large bid over the No.9 Broncos was bound to happen, and the BCS once again proved it’s all about the money, not about the quality of the team.

Putting people in the stands should have been the least of the Fiesta Bowl’s worries if they had chosen Boise State.  If anyone remembers the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, you will remember the stadium was split right down the middle.  One half was orange and the other half was red, putting any rumors that Boise State could not fill the seats to rest.

This leaves only the fact that Ohio State gets better television ratings than Boise State as the deciding factor as to who got the at-large bid.

While the Broncos pled their case, many other teams have legitimate arguments against the BCS as to why its system is the way it is.

If anyone noticed, the Orange Bowl is going to feature No. 19 Virginia Tech, winners of the Atlantic Coast Conference against No. 12 Cincinnati, winners of the Big East. 

Virginia Tech is 9-4, while Cincinnati is 11-2 after narrowly escaping against Hawai’i 29-24 last week.

Not since the 2005 Fiesta Bowl, which featured the original BCS busting No.6 Utah against No.21 Pittsburgh (another team from the Big East) has there been such a lame duck BCS game. 

You would think if the BCS was truly about the money it would make a rule to avoid these kinds of scenarios.  The contributing factor to this problem is the fact that sometimes even the major BCS conferences have down years.  Conferences that had a down year this year include the Big Ten, ACC, Big East and Pac-10. 

Because of the prior commitments the BCS has made with these conferences they automatically get penciled in, even when they have two or more losses. 

Now because of the automatic bids given to the winners of the so-called “power conferences”, teams like Boise State, Texas Tech and Texas all get the shaft.

The only way to possibly explain this is that when the BCS was created in 1999, the committee never thought the conferences they gave automatic bids to would ever fail to produce a worthy opponent. 

Now the BCS seems to be stuck with that decision even though they know teams from conferences like the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conference are catching up to, and even surpassing, some of the bigger conferences.

Will the BCS ever change its system? Maybe one day.  Will it change soon?

Probably not.  The BCS is stuck in its old ways during a new age in college football. And they don’t seem to care, even at the expense of many deserving teams.

Whether you’re a fan of one of the undeserving BCS teams or not, there is no denying the system contains many flaws. 

But now that everything else seems to be under a transition of change, maybe some change  will head college football’s way after all.

TRENT LOOTENS
Arbiter Journalist

Related Posts:

1. Sideline Pass: All No.1 Seeds to the Final Four again?
2. Sideline Pass:
   All No.1 seeds to the Final Four again?
3. Sideline Pass: Another No.1 bites the dust
4. Sideline Pass:
5. Sideline Pass: