Fiesta Bowl Accomplishes Nothing For Boise St and TCU

Throughout this past half of the decade, non-BCS schools have been striving to prove that they deserve automatic bids into BCS bowls.  Utah started the trend by beating Pitt in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl, Boise St. kept it alive when they defeated Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, followed by Utah defeating Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. 

This year was thought to be similar.  Boise State and TCU would be given chances against BCS schools to prove their worth in college football, but instead of the BCS selection committee letting everyone see these Cinderella’s fight for the chance to slide on the glass slipper, they didn’t even let them go to the ball.

Boise State and TCU, the only non-BCS schools that were put into BCS bowls, were matched up against each other in a 2010 Fiesta Bowl that ultimately decided the biggest loser.  Sure it may have been a fun game to watch, but neither school was given any respect regardless of the fact that they were in a BCS Bowl.

I have never been a big fan of putting the Utah’s, or the Hawaii’s, or the Boise State’s, into BCS bowls, because I personally believe that they cannot hang with the big boys of the BCS.  And on multiple occasions, I have been proven wrong.  However this was the year that could have changed all that for not only me, but others who did not believe in the power of the small conferences.

Boise State, who has been leading the fight for respect of non-BCS schools, should have been matched up against Florida in the Sugar Bowl.  Imagine the buzz around that game.  The Florida Gators, a school with two national championships in the past three years, and with wunderkind Tim Tebow at quarterback, take on the Boise State Broncos, the Cinderella school of college football finally trying to establish themselves amongst the NCAA Football community.

That would leave Cincinnati to play non-BCS newcomer TCU to battle out for the Fiesta Bowl, at the same stadium where Boise St. was once thought to have demonstrated why they belonged in BCS Bowls.

This could have been the year to end all talks about small conference schools in BCS Bowls.  If Boise State wins, they would have finally showed why non-BCS schools should have the same chance at BCS Bowls as any other team does.  If they lose, then it would have showed why non-BCS schools should not be in National Championship talks, or even BCS Bowl talks.

But that was not the case.

Instead everyone watched a rematch of last year’s Poinsettia Bowl and was left wondering if these schools would have been able to handle the likes of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, or the SEC.  The good news about Cinderella teams is that they always have motivation to fight for respect and show others why they belong.  You can bet that next year we will be talking about Kellen Moore and the Broncos, Gary Patterson and the Horned Frogs, or another small conference school that will want to illustrate to the world why they belong in the BCS.