The Big East Does Not Deserve an Automatic BCS Bowl Bid

Take a look at the rankings. How many ranked teams from the Big Least do you see?

I see one—West Virginia—and at No. 22.

Sad, isn't it?

The league is an absolute joke. Look at last year's Sugar Bowl. Florida came into the game with a woeful offense that were it not for Tim Tebow would have been just as bad as this year.

What happened?

The best team from the Big East did not belong on the same field as the second-best team from the SEC—and I'm not so sure Florida was the second-best last year, even as a diehard Gator fan.

Florida put 51 on Cincinnati. 51!!! And get this—no help from defense or special teams, aside from a 52-yard kick return by Chris Rainey. EVERYTHING ELSE WAS GENERATED BY THE OFFENSE. No turnovers (Florida didn't really need them), no blocked kicks or punts, nothing like that. Just pure, 51-point offense, from the same offense that averaged less than 30 points a game.

Then look at this year, early on, when Florida played the University of South Florida. USF actually led early on, the shocker of the century.

What happened?

Florida looked up at the scoreboard, said "OK, time to try, bitch," and started to try with a minute left in the half down 7-0.

What happened? USF was so bad that Florida scored 38 points in the span of 27 minutes. Florida's offense in 2010 has been the worst in decades, and they hung 38 on a team that was one game behind the "champion" of that conference. Granted, seven points came on a pick-six by Justin Trattou...but that's still 31...and Miami Ohio's defense really gave up one TD to the Gators.

Oh, and by the way, that USF team nearly beat UConn, the "champion" of the Big Least.

What this basically means is that if you put Florida in the Big East, they would have blown everybody away, considering that USF was one of the better teams in the conference. Then the Gators would be BCS-bowl bound every year.

Look at this year's Gators team. Do they belong in a BCS bowl?

Not at all. But is UConn any more deserving, considering that they had four losses and nearly had a fifth against a team that got destroyed by a mediocre, middle-of-the-pack team from the SEC?

The only reason that I think the Fiesta Bowl will be closer than people think is because Oklahoma has had a habit of treating the Fiesta Bowl like it's the Holiday Bowl, taking the day off. This has happened twice now, and it became one big Fiesta for Boise State and West Virginia—teams that were less talented but more ready to play.

I'm just sick of Big Least teams receiving automatic BCS bids.

I mean, UConn isn't even ranked—the first time ever that a BCS-bound team was not in the nation's Top 25. I have no problem giving a Big East team an at-large bid if they run the table with a respectable non-conference opponent. Then the country can sit back and laugh as the Big East representative is either embarrassed, or does the embarrassing to an unsuspecting, legit BCS victim.

I feel bad for Louisville and West Virginia, as they are the only teams in the conference that I have any respect for. They've earned it by winning BCS games.

But to give the Big Least an automatic bid is like giving your 12-year-old sister a key to your friend's house—where there just so happens to be a party for the hardworking high school kids who are mature enough to be able to party hard.

The little sister (UConn) is too young to handle the atmosphere that the older kids (SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and ACC teams) provide. She'll walk in, get confused for a minute, and then a big high school senior (the BCS opponent) will pin her against the wall, injure her, deliberately torture her, make her feel extremely unwelcome, and then force her to leave with broken bones and serious injuries after inflicting one final dose of public humiliation. Then the senior will yell out to her that she can expect the same results if she tries crashing the party again.

Doesn't matter how glamorous she may be, how much attention she draws, she still does not belong there, much like UConn in the BCS.

But in all fairness, it isn't just the Big Least. It's every other team from every other FBS conference minus Boise State, TCU and Utah.

Some teams will eventually take the hint. Georgia leveled Hawaii (from the WAC) 41-10 in the BCS Sugar Bowl in 2007.

Hawaii should have taken the first hint that they could not play with the SEC and canceled their scheduled game with Florida the next year. They didn't, and it happened again, this time on the first weekend of the season.

What Florida administered to Hawaii cannot be characterized as anything short of a complete and utter beatdown in the Swamp. Hawaii actually hung around for a quarter, but after three it was 56-0, and Florida pulled the starters. This was when the Rainbow Warriors conceded that they were, in fact, inferior.

Hawaii was smart. They get the fact that they are not a BCS-worthy team.

Why doesn't UConn?

They've ignored the warning signs thus far—the Florida-USF game, the past failures of Big Least in BCS bowl games...but then again, Oklahoma has played the part of Michigan in the Michigan-Appalachian State game in previous years.

They better not screw around this time.

They better win this game by at least 40 points.

Boomer Sooner, I'm counting on you!