UConn, the Big East and the Fiesta Bowl: Does Anyone Deserve to Go There?

All the time here at UConn, I hear students and fans speculating that the Huskies have a good shot of going to the Fiesta Bowl.

If we win out (against Cincinnati and South Florida) and Pitt loses to West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl on Friday, we would be through to the BCS.

Were this to happen, we would likely face the Big 12 champion, which, barring an unlikely scenario, would either be Oklahoma, Oklahoma State or Nebraska.

For a program that started the season 3-4 and seemed pretty much done, that is very impressive. Or is it?

At 8-4, would we really deserve a BCS bid? Yes, we would have won the Big East and there really wouldn’t be anyone (except maybe West Virginia) who would be more deserving, but in all likelihood, we would be unranked.

Yes, it would be an impressive end to the season, but would it really be a big step for this program?

Chances are we would get clobbered by the Big 12 team, leaving us 8-5, which is the same record as last season. It’s only because the rest of the Big East is horrendous that we would have gotten nearly as far as we did.

Quite frankly, we would be the worst team ever to make a BCS game—yes, worse than the Pittsburgh team in the 2005 game (after the 2004 season). Coincidentally (or not), both teams are from the Big East.

As a Husky fan, I certainly hope we can make it to the Fiesta Bowl, but we (or whoever wins the conference) would not be nearly as deserving of it as any of the one-loss teams in the Big Ten, at least one of which will not go through.

UConn (or whoever wins) will be unranked—yes, unranked—and they’re more deserving of the BCS than a Top 10 team.

Looking at the rankings, the at-large BCS teams will likely be TCU, Boise State, LSU and someone from the Big Ten. At least one Top 10 team will be left out—and an unranked team from Big East will go to the Fiesta Bowl.

I don’t think that seems fair. Then again, I don’t think the BCS as a whole is fair.

I’m glad they changed the name from I-A to FBS. Because quite frankly, this is a load of...FBS.