T-C-SCREWED: This Year's BCS Is Another Bust

It came as no surprise Sunday night when the BCS overlooked the accomplishments of the lesser-known Texas team from Fort Worth in favor of the more profitable and well-known Texas team from Austin.

But what did shock and turn the stomachs of many college football fans was the gutless decision by the BCS to pit the Horned Frogs against WAC champion Boise St. in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Even worse, it's the second straight season that these two schools will face off in a bowl game. The Horned Frogs handed the Broncos their only loss of the season a year ago in the Poinsettia Bowl 17-16.

It appears the BCS was so afraid of TCU that they put them in a position where even if they won this year's Fiesta Bowl, they would get no credit for it. Because if they beat Boise St., well, what do they gain? The powers that be will simply disregard it as an insignificant win over the non-BCS WAC champion.

Could you imagine if say TCU whupped Florida? Well, that would be a BCS nightmare—can't have that.

The BCS will argue that they wanted to pit two undefeated teams against one another, that it was a dream matchup, but most knowledgeable people saw it as a move to protect the power conferences from the recent embarrassments they have suffered.

The most recent embarrassment came a season ago when the non-BCS conference Mountain West champion Utah Utes pummeled SEC power Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl. In fact, that wasn't even Utah's first BCS beatdown of the "so-called" power conferences. The first was a 35-7 thrashing of the Big East's Pittsburgh Panthers in 2005's Fiesta Bowl.

Don't forget the famous "Statue of Liberty" game where the WAC's Boise State beat the Big 12's Oklahoma Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

No way was the BCS going to set themselves up yet again to have the preferred "money conferences" embarrassed. In fact, if they hadn't matched up TCU and Boise St., they could have suffered not one, but two humiliating defeats in one bowl season.

In a way, TCU can place the blame on fellow Mountain West school Utah for their non-opportunity this year. As mentioned, it was the Utes who just a season ago not only won their highly anticipated matchup with SEC power Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, but crushed the Crimson Tide. The Utes made the mighty Tide look so silly that 'Bama could have been mistaken for a second-rate Division II school.

Worst of all for the BCS, it was the Utes' second straight blowout victory in BCS matchups. The Utes' first BCS win in '05 went largely ignored because, well, it was Pittsburgh they whupped.

But when Boise St. followed that performance with a win against Big 12 power Oklahoma in '07 and then the Utes backed that up with a dismantling of mighty Alabama last year, the BCS knew they were finally and officially exposed as a scam.

But in the end, does any of this even matter? Why would TCU, Boise St., or Utah, for that matter, want to end the current system when the current system has the ability to pay out $23.8 million to the Mountain West and WAC conferences simply because TCU and Boise St. are playing in this year's Fiesta Bowl? I guess I'd keep my mouth shut too if I received that kind of payout.

With cash like that going to the TCU coffers, I guess they aren't really screwed after all. Once again, it's just we the fans who are screwed! We don't see any of the money; we supply the money. We pay to watch the wrong teams play for a corrupt National Championship.