Why Auburn and Utah Were Bigger BCS Title Snubs Than Boise State

We all have watched the last few years as the Boise State Broncos have put together an impressive run, which culminated in another big win against TCU in the 2010 Fiesta Bowl. 

Some say the Broncos deserve a title shot, while others disagree.

This article isn’t going to delve into that discussion because, for the most part, enough has been written from both sides.  The pundits have come out who believe the Broncos do not deserve a title shot and have vehemently defended their position. 

If you look at history, there were several other teams who were more deserving at the time than Boise State. 

Several other teams have gone the entire season undefeated and did not win or even have a shot at winning the national title.

The teams are as follows:

1994 Penn State Nittany Lions —Rolled Oregon 38–20 in the Rose Bowl, but finished second to Nebraska in the polls.

1998 Tulane Green Wave —Went 12–0, defeated BYU 41–27 in the Liberty Bowl, finished ranked seventh in the country.

1999 Marshall Thundering Herd —Went 13–0, defeated BYU 21–3 in the Motor City Bowl, but FSU won the national title. Both the 'Noles and the Herd had a common opponent in Clemson, and both beat the Tigers by three points.

2004 Auburn Tigers —Went 13–0, undefeated in the SEC, and denied a shot at the national title.

2004 Utah Utes —Went 12–0, invited to a BCS bowl game, and beat Pittsburgh.

2006 Boise State Broncos —Undefeated at 13–0, invited to a BCS bowl game, and defeated Oklahoma.

2008 Utah Utes —Went 13–0, became the first team in the BCS era to finish with two perfect seasons, destroyed Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

2009 Boise State Broncos —Undefeated at 14–0, beat TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, second team ever to have a 14–0 season.

**1994 Texas A&M Aggies —Went 10–0–1 (this was before the overtime rule was instituted), did not play for the national title.

**1995 University of Toledo —Went 11–0–1 (also before overtime rule was instituted0, did not have an opportunity to play for the national title.

That’s a total of 10 times a team went undefeated and was not given an opportunity to play for the national championship. 

The two teams with ties were included because, had overtime been around when they played, maybe they win those games and finish the season with a perfect record.

The point here is that Boise State wants to play victim here and claim they are being wronged because they do not have a shot to play for the national title, which is a true to some degree. 

But if you look through history, they weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last to be passed over for a chance at the big game.

If you look at the Penn Sate and Texas A&M examples, you can say those were before the current BCS system that we have in place. 

That doesn’t make it any less tragic that two teams from “power” (current BCS) conferences went undefeated and didn’t get a chance to play in the big game. 

The Auburn example is the best one since it was during the BCS era. In it, you have a team go undefeated and win the supposed “best conference” in college football, but yet they were not admitted to the title game.

The schedule played by Auburn that year dominates in comparison to anything Boise, TCU, or any other non-BCS team could have shown for a deserving schedule. 

To top it off, they beat ACC champion Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl to finish off the season, and they end up finishing No. 2 in the polls behind USC, who beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.

This is the single most egregious case of a team being left out in the cold after putting in a thorough body of work during the season. 

I am not saying what Boise State accomplished wasn’t great, but the clamoring for national title is not warranted and I will give you another example.

The Utah Utes started the BCS busting before Boise did. The 2004 team dominated Pitt easily in the Fiesta Bowl 35–7, yet I saw no clamoring for a national title. 

The primary reason for that was because BCS busting was new (they were the first to do it), and Pitt was not a highly regarded team that year.

Then the Utes followed that up in 2008 with a dismantling of the SEC’s No. 2 team 31–17 in the Sugar Bowl, and yet there was not the same clamoring I am hearing for the Broncos. 

Somewhere along the line, Boise State became the sexy underdog that everyone seems to like, and people don’t hate Utah, but for some reason they forget that Utah invented BCS busting.

I think it stems from the fact that beating Pitt in 2004 was not considered a big deal, while Boise splashed on the scene by beating a more highly regarded team in Oklahoma. 

If you think about it, Utah’s run is a bit more impressive because they required no trick plays to win their games. They just lined up and dominated Pitt in 2004 and Alabama in 2008.

I don’t knock Boise for the trick plays—it’s good coaching, and Bobby Bowden practically became a legend off of them. 

I am simply stating that Utah never needed to pull out all the stops to win their two BCS games, while Boise could have easily lost both of theirs. 

If you look at both of the Utes' BCS performances, you can easily say both of the teams they played almost looked inferior. They were that dominating both times.

I don’t want to diminish what the Broncos have accomplished, because it is truly impressive. 

I want to highlight that Utah was more impressive and deserving last season, and even a team from a BCS conference can be left out in the cold when running the table. 

Until the current system changes these situations will continue to occur, and at some point everyone will have an equal shot to play for the national title.