BCS Holds All The Cards, But Boise State, TCU, and Utah Are Playing Chess

My three best friends and I are the greatest arm wrestlers who ever lived.  We’re undisputed champions in every arm wrestling championship we hold amongst ourselves; one of us always wins! 

Wait, you want to arm wrestle us?  Well, you’re nowhere near being as good as we are.  You couldn’t hope to compete against the four greatest arm wrestlers who ever lived.  Why don’t you come back when you’ve defeated every arm wrestler that isn’t us?  Oh you did, did you?  Hmph.  Well none of them were us, so you didn’t prove yourself against anyone good.  Buzz off. 

In case you haven’t figured it out already, this is what it’s like to be a college football team on the outside of the Bowl Championship Series.  Every year, this circular reasoning rears its ugly head—and every year, the grumbling against this circular reasoning gets louder.  

It all started a few years back when a bunch of rich old guys figured out that if they banded together to form a football cartel, they could cement their schools’ position as the best football schools. 

By ensuring championships could only be awarded to their schools and making it nearly impossible for outsiders to compete for the title, they would continue attracting the best recruits, because who would want to play for a team that didn't play the best schools?

And by refusing to play schools that were good enough to threaten their insiders’ club, they assured that their dominance could never be put to the test.

But something went wrong somewhere in the plan.  Boise State, Texas Christian, Brigham Young, and a host of others refused to stay good for just a little while and then fade away.  They kept on winning. 

The thing that made the BCS function as planned was making sure these teams didn’t stay good for long.  By siphoning off the best recruits and letting the lesser schools fade out of the picture through attrition, they would disappear within a year or two.  Unfortunately, these pesky, plucky little schools kept winning despite the BCS's best efforts to marginalize them.

Then last year, Boise State and Texas Christian went undefeated, running over a few BCS teams in the process.  Murmurs of a mid-major playing for a national championship bubbled to the top, and this was a blasphemy to the hegemony of the BCS.   

Fortunately for them, the system had a failsafe to keep either of the upstarts from playing for a national championship.  “Strength of schedule” was the insurance policy that made sure that even if the top BCS teams had a loss or two, the teams could still be considered better than the “lesser” non-BCS schools.

Boise State’s victory over a top ten team (after making a trip of over two thousand miles, no less) and their fifteen-game winning streak has forced everyone to take notice.  At the same time, however, every effort has been made to downplay the idea of a mid-major playing for a national championship:

Boise State only has to prepare for one or two tough games per year, but the “powerhouse schools” have to be ready for every game.
Boise State shouldn’t be allowed to cruise through an easy schedule and play for a national championship.
Beating a number 10 is nothing like beating numbers 1 through 3.Boise State would be crushed by the top teams.

So all Boise State (or any other mid major) needs to do in order to be worthy of playing for a national championship are these:

Play in a powerhouse conference which would never invite them.

Schedule several powerhouse teams that would never play them.

Somehow ensure that every other team in their conference is at least as good as every team in BCS conferences.

The problem is that all of those requisites are outside of any team’s control.  So they only have one option left: win.  Win again.  And again.  Keep on winning—go undefeated for two seasons, three seasons, whatever it takes.  Just keep on winning until you can’t be ignored anymore and hope that someday, somehow, you’ll be allowed to play in a game that means something to someone.

Maybe it’s all in vain, and maybe a mid major can never, ever gain the respect of the BCS.  But maybe having the respect of the BCS is becoming less important with each passing win.  What could you do with a kid that won't let you play with any of their toys?  You just go find some toys of your own to play with. 

The BCS' stock is falling rapidly; Boise State doesn't (and shouldn't) have to try to earn their respect anymore.  Maybe the key isn't to beat the BCS at its own game, but to find a new game to play.  And Boise's game is doing just that, by playing good football.