The Fifth Down

November 5, 10:37 AMSeattle High School Football ExaminerEvan Flay

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Topic: Boise State...WTF?!

You know, I felt the need to begin this week's session with another "Really, seriously?", but I honestly think that this story is too pathetic for it. Here's the headline from ESPN.com:

"PR firm hired to make push for Boise St."- The Western Athletic Conference is using Boise-based PR firm Scott Peyron & Associates to help Boise State's football team in its push for a BCS bowl.

Wow, just wow. Ok, just so you know why the Broncos are in this situation, here's how the BCS bowl selection process works:

A complicated set of rules is used to determine which teams compete in the BCS bowl games. Certain teams are given automatic berths depending on their BCS ranking and conference, as follows:

    * The top two teams are given automatic berths in the BCS National Championship Game.
    * The champion of a BCS conference (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC) is guaranteed an automatic BCS bowl bid.
    * The highest ranked champion of a non-BCS conference will receive an automatic berth if:
          o It is ranked in the top twelve, or
          o Ranked in the top sixteen and higher than at least one BCS Conference champion.
    * No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year.
    * A special case is made for independent Notre Dame, which receives an automatic berth if it finishes in the top eight.
    * No more than two teams from any one conference may receive berths in BCS games unless two non-champions from a BCS conference finish as the top two teams in the final BCS standings in which case they will meet in the National Title Game while their conference champion will play in their conference's BCS bowl game.
    * The third-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, and if it is a member of a BCS Conference (and provided that its conference has not already earned two automatic berths), if there's room.
    * If the third-ranked team did not require a berth using the previous provision, then the fourth-ranked team will receive an automatic berth if it has not already received one, and if it is a member of a BCS Conference (and provided that its conference has not already earned two automatic berths), if there's room.


That info comes straight from the most reliable source on the internet. Everybody say "Thanks Wikipedia!"
 

Fortunately, Boise State's situation can be summed up in a way that won't give you an aneurysm when you think about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but prepare to die.

Outside of the six major conferences in the NCAA, a total of 55 teams make up an additional six conferences (Conference USA, Independents, Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and the WAC). From those six groups of gridiron awfulness come about six or seven teams that could defeat last year's winless Washington Huskies. Since the quality of football played in these conferences resembles what you would see at a company picnic, the NCAA didn't want to hand out any freebees to teams who didn't neccessarily pay their dues. Now here's where it gets confusing. I'll list it out for those of you who, like me, think this is way more complicated than it should be.

*5 BCS bowl games= 10 teams

*Right now, the SEC and Big 12 would send two teams each (Florida and Texas to the National Championship, Bama to the Sugar Bowl, and Oklahoma State to the Fiesta Bowl)

*Four spots down, six to go.

*The champions of the Pac-10, ACC, Big 10, and Big East take one spot each.

*Two spots left

*Only the highest ranked team from the six non-BCS conferences that I covered earlier receives an automatic invite.

*Right now, Boise State (WAC) is ranked No. 7 in the BCS polls. Unfortunately for the Broncos, TCU (Mountain West) is sitting at No. 6.

*If the season ended today, TCU would get the invite and Boise State would probably be left out.

*If TCU gets the spot on BCS Selection Sunday (December 6, 2009), the only way for Boise State to play in one of the five BCS bowl games would be to win the at-large bid.

*After the nine spots are filled (assuming TCU stays above Boise), the remaining berths, known as "at-large" berths, are filled from a pool of teams who are ranked in the top fourteen and have at least nine wins.

*When all of these at-large candidates are brought together, a BCS selection committee decides which one of the teams will play in the bowl game.

*The downside for Boise is that, when the committee looks at them, they will see a very weak schedule. Yeah, Boise beat Oregon in week one, but that could have been a fluke. The Broncos haven't even played a mediocre team since then, so the chances of Boise being left out are pretty high.

Get it? I sure hope so, because I'm kinda tired at looking at the same pages, trying to understand this.

So, let's have a super short review session.

Six horrible conferences throw up their best team into one of the major bowl games.

Right now, TCU is the front runner for that spot.

Boise State is angry.

Boise State hires PR firm to help make them sound better to the people who vote in the polls and who select the at-large team.

I slam my head on the keyboard repeatedly in an attempt to understand why BSU doesn't take a more logical approach to this, such as tweaking their schedule so it's not filled with games against JV teams and flag football champions.

--------------------------------

I'm guessing that you probably want my thoughts, seeing as how you're reading this. Well, okay. Boise State didn't really help themselves out when they only scheduled one game against a BCS eligible school. Granted, it WAS Oregon, who currently sits at No. 8 in the BCS standings. But still, that would be like the Steelers beating the Patriots in week one, and then going on to play the Lions and Rams for the next fifteen games. Sure, you're undefeated, but is it really the same? I think not.

The obvious solution to this is playing better, BCS eligible teams. But who's going to want to risk losing to a WAC or Mountain West team and being doomed in the rankings for the rest of the season? I bet Oregon is kicking themselves because of this. If, instead of losing to BSU in week one, they had beaten someone else, ANYONE ELSE, they would probably be in the No. 4 or 5 spot right now. Of course, if you read the selection process, you would see that Notre Dame (Independents) could completely eliminate the possibility of an at-large team being selected by finishing in the top eight, which would give them an automatic bid.

Take about special treatment! That's what happens when God is your biggest fan.

TOUCHDOWN JESUS!  

P.S. Hey Boise State, don't be sad that you didn't think before making your schedule, you're still going to a bowl game. Maybe we could call it the:

Castrol "Think With Your Dipstick!" Bowl

I sure hope everyone has seen that commercial. If not, that joke just sounded very strange.

 THINK WITH YOUR DIPSTICK, BOISE!