College Football Week 12, in which Les Miles reads Houston Nutt's will

Well, obviously they don't. Which to some leads to the question of whether this is the best way to decide it.

 

People like the abstract notion of a spunky underdog, but anyone can fit the bill for them. Last month's Tulane is last week's Utah is yesterday's Boise State is today's Houston. But they draw the line at the MAC, based on nobody championing Ball State that year they threatened to run the kiddie table.

 

You very well may be right about Houston, but you're saying the same thing about Houston, that everybody was saying about Boise before the Oklahoma win.

Houston isn't going to make the title game, but if it finishes undefeated, will probably get a BCS bid.

If we have another week like the last one and a two-loss team beats LSU in the title game and Houston somehow finds a way to beat someone like Oklahoma or Stanford, then people are no longer so willing to dismiss them.

 

Goes to my "legacy" point. By the time the Boise State support had built up, they had sustained several years of dominance in their league/division. They've lost no more than one game in seven of the last eight seasons (this year would be 8 of 9) and in the process have beaten Iowa State and Oklahoma in bowl games.

For some, that accumulated success adds up to carrying more weight in a given year.

 

Respectfully disagree.

Anybody who's been watching has been aware that Boise boosters have poured UNSPEAKABLE resources into that program over the past decade-plus. They've been bound and determined to pull even with the biggest of the big kids. And if they're not there, they're only short by inches.

I've been waiting for the NCAA to throw all the books at them, for years. Still waiting.

 

You're not the only one who thinks that. When the Miami stuff broke, I asked a friend of mine who covers national college football what would be the next program to have a similar-type scandal and he said Boise State.

 

My point on Houston is, you have a good team in a bad conference with an elite QB, maybe that team could be dangerous against a top team.

Maybe they'd lose by 40. I don't know... I just would to see them have a chance, if we had a completely different system than the current garbage we're given...

 

Back in 1985, Fresno State went 10-0-1 (only tie was to Hawaii in the last week of the regular season). They played Bowling Green in the California Bowl against Bowling Green, which came into the game undefeated. Fresno State won handily and wound up finishing the season as the only undefeated team in DI-A.

Their reward? A No. 16 ranking in the coaches' poll and being unranked by the AP.

So if this was 1985 and you had a vote in the AP poll, would you have put Fresno State No. 1 on your ballot because they were the only undefeated team and hey, they won all the games in front of them while no one else did?

Houston's a nice story, especially considering what they've been able to accomplish after losing the coach that first pulled them out of the cratering of the Helton/Dimel eras. But in a system where there is no postseason and a huge number of teams playing a comparatively small amount of games, who you beat matters. And Houston, so far, hasn't beat anyone worthwhile. The system will give them a chance to "prove" themselves in a BCS bowl game (assuming they win out), which is a lot more than they would have had not long ago.

 

2001 Nebraska (didn't win its division) over Oregon
2003 Oklahoma (lost in its championship game) over USC
2007 LSU (had two losses)
2008 Florida (lost at home) over USC

2004 also had controversy with three unbeaten major conference teams, though most people figured USC and Oklahoma were the two best teams ahead of Auburn. And of course there's been the Boise contingent the last couple of years.

So yes, there has been controversy over who gets to play for and win the BCS national title. Just like there has always been in college football.

Only a playoff could (maybe) fix that.

 

C-USA has crappy bowl tie-ins, so the best Houston can hope for outside a BCS berth is a Liberty Bowl matchup with Mississippi State or Vanderbilt.

 

If there were a playoff, how many of us would have cared that Iowa State beat Oklahoma State, USC beat Oregon or Baylor beat Oklahoma? All three teams would still be going to the playoffs.

 

That's how it is in college basketball. It's a niche sport until March. I would compare it to MLB, where interest is almost exclusively regional until the tournament begins. Except, in college hoops, the public actually cares about the tournament.