By football season’s end, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, might have a few new crusaders in the War on the BCS.
This time last year, eight college football teams were undefeated but with so many of them busts (remember Ball State’s run?), the BCS didn’t seem that bad.
To some, Utah had a legitimate complaint for not reaching the title game instead of a one-loss Florida or Oklahoma team. In response Hatch has tried to intervene, questioning the legality of the BCS.
Utah won’t factor in this year’s national championship picture but someone, somewhere, will get shorted.
Last year, the remaining undefeateds at this point in the year were all over the polls. Teams like Tulsa and Ball State were hardly in the top 20.
The rub this year is that all six remaining undefeateds — Florida, Alabama, Texas, Texas Christian, Cincinnati and Boise State — comprise the top six in both human polls. Each team has at least one bona fide quality win, and several teams have more than one.
But as sad as it may be, one of those teams may not even make a BCS bowl.
Out of the remaining six undefeated teams, a maximum of five can finish with that pristine record. Alabama and Florida have already punched their tickets to the Southeastern Conference championship game.
Still, if the other four teams currently undefeated win out, that’ll leave five, and not all are guaranteed a spot in a BCS game.
The big question: Who gets into the title game?
If Florida loses to Alabama, could the wide BCS gap between Nos. 1 and 3 be wide enough so Florida drops to just No. 2? Could we see a Florida-Alabama rematch?
I hope not.
Assuming one of the one-loss SEC teams doesn’t make the title game, who does?
Should it be Texas? The Longhorns have been playing mighty well. With the exception of their 16-13 win over Oklahoma, they’ve won every game by at least 10 points. Not easy to do in league play (see Florida).
But if you put Texas in, what about Cincinnati? Yes, the Bearcats play in the Big East, which some may consider a weaker league this year than the non-BCS Mountain West.
Before you judge Cinncinati based on its conference, have you watched a game? The past few weeks, the Bearcats have played without their starting quarterback. Saturday against Connecticut, backup QB Zach Collaros threw for 480 yards. And he’s the backup.
OK, so you put Texas or Cincinnati in the title game. What happens to TCU? The Horned Frogs are for real, having three killer road wins: two in the ACC and one, a 31-point slaughter, against now-No. 22 Brigham Young.
TCU’s defense, allowing just over 11 points per game, has the firepower to stop Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy or anyone else.
So now we’re thinking either Texas, Cincinnati or TCU might make the title game alongside Florida or Alabama. What about Boise State?
The Broncos are playing out of their minds. They’re the only team to have defeated Oregon with perhaps its best player, the infamous LaGarrette Blount, and they did so convincingly. Since then, Boise hasn’t slowed down. Quarterback Kellen Moore leads the country in passer rating and would likely be the hands-down Heisman favorite if he went to school elsewhere.
And hopefully, you remember what Boise did the last time it was given a chance in a BCS game.
Regardless of who gets in the title game — and sadly, we can almost be certain it won’t be TCU or Boise State — not all of these will even be granted a BCS bowl.
The BCS only guarantees one mid-major team a berth in one of its bowls. We can assume one of those teams will be either TCU or Boise. After that, each bowl can pick an at-large team of its choosing, and we can assume each bowl will snap up a lower-ranked money-maker — Ohio State, perhaps — before a school like Boise State.
Is it right? Hardly. Is it going anywhere? No, not even with President Obama peddling for a playoff.
I’m not going to try and make sense of it all. I just wanted to spell it out so I could see just how convoluted it all is.
This year, things could get ugly. Hatch might have a few Senate buddies team up with him in the War on the BCS.
I hear those Republican senators from Idaho, Mike Crapo and James Risch, are warriors.
James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.
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If there has ever been a year to include two non AQ teams, this is the year. Although I would have said the same thing last year giving the nod to both Utah and Boise State. I think TCU is a very good team this year, but I also think that they have benefited from the MWC as a whole being somewhat overrated. Top to bottom the MWC was better last year than they are this year. TCU looks to have impressive wins over both BYU and Clemson, but neither of those teams has really beaten anyone of note. Yes BYU scrapped by OU playing without Sam Bradford, but we are finding out now that’s not such a big deal. Clemson beat Miami, but I think we’re also finding out that Miami isn’t the super power it was once thought either.
If a team goes undefeated in any conference, I say put them in a BCS game.