Blue Vitriol: Boise State and The Absence Of Objectivity

College football fans broadly fall into two categories.

The first is the establishment fan. The die hard supporters of the traditional powerhouses. The Michigans, the Alabamas, the Ohio States, the Notre Dames. These fans pine for the good old days when the nation's best players flocked to a small number of elite programs that commanded the national spotlight.

The second type is the fan of the nouveau riche. These fans throw their weight behind nascent powers who, on any given day, look as though they could beat any team in the country. With Nike founder Phil Knight their biggest booster, my beloved Oregon Ducks are often held up as the poster child for this stereotype. The USF Bulls and Texas Tech are other programs that in recent years have also threatened to challenge the traditional powers' ongoing hegemony. However, in the nouveau riche category, no team has caused as much a stir in recent times as the Boise State Broncos.

How, you may ask, can an obscure little school from Idaho, that plays its games in the inferior Western Athletic Conference (WAC) be a serious contender for college football's biggest prize? The answer, regardless of either above fan you talk to, is that Boise State's schedule is a joke. That sure, the Broncos may have won some big games in the last couple of years, but preparing for big games is easy when you play 10 easy games a year that you pencil in as Ws before either team has taken a snap. Or viewed another way, the establishment fans don't like the new kid on the block threatening their dominance, and the nouveau riche fans are just jealous it's the Broncos rather than their team getting all the attention.

Expectation Bias and Objectivity:

Sports fans have never been viewed as paragons of objectivity, but college football's ambiguous nature only adds fuel to the fire. Without a playoff system, it's impossible to say with any certainty which team would beat which on any given Saturday. The ambiguity in this case is that the last few years Boise State has built a reputation as a giant killer, and due to its easy scheduling, bears no grueling burden of proof to suggest otherwise.

In his critically acclaimed 2008 book Predictably Irrational, MIT behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely dedicates a chapter to the notion of "expectation bias." Essentially, that subconsciously our predetermined beliefs and allegiances can affect our judgment in even the most trivial matters. Sports is seen as a common one; as is religion, politics, wars, and any other dinner party bugaboo polite people tend to steer clear of. In the case of Boise State, having a good proportion of the college football fandom personally invested in the belief that its success is overhyped, it's easy to see why it's causing such a stir every night on Sportscenter.

What's the moral of the story? #1. In assessing the Broncos' claim on playing in the national title game, be mindful that your own opinions on the matter are likely biased. As an Oregon Ducks fan, mine certainly are. #2 We seriously need a college football playoff system. Yesterday.