Bowl Projections: Houston Deserves BCS Game Against Elite Program

Houston's offense led by Case Keenum is nothing short of spectacular. Think of it this way. Not many teams out there could score 37 points one game and have it significantly hurt their points per game average, but that's what happened to Houston with their 37-7 victory over SMU.

Now, there is a precedent for non-BCS teams making a BCS game. We've seen it from Utah, TCU and Boise State twice, as well as Hawaii once. Those teams have actually done quite well for themselves. Hawaii lost their game, but the only other loss came when Boise State beat TCU.

What the BCS has been inconsistent with is determining what teams those smaller conference schools play. 

In the case of the Houston Cougars, this is not a mistake that they can make. Houston deserves one of the best BCS teams to not be a part of the National Championship Game.

More important, the viewers deserve to see this. In 2004, Utah was placed in the Fiesta Bowl against Pittsburgh, who was only in because the Big East wasn't a strong conference. Not much has changed. 

In 2009, TCU and Boise State were matched up against each other, One of them could have squared off against an undefeated Cincinnati team while the other played against Florida in Tim Tebow's last game, but that didn't happen. Frankly, it was disappointing.

Now, I am not saying that Houston deserves a National Championship shot. Conference USA is not strong at all and Houston's only win over a BCS opponent came in Week 1 against an unimpressive UCLA team. 

But for the sake of argument, let's say that the National Championship Game will match up two SEC teams. Given that the Top 3 of the BCS are all in the SEC, that's a decent assumption to make. 

But as far as potential opponents go, how about the winner of the Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State game? What about the at-large bid from the Big Ten or Pac-12?

The Big East and ACC are just not very good conferences this season. Clemson wouldn't be a terrible matchup, but I don't think it would be all that intriguing to many people who aren't fans of one of those teams.

That's not true for a team like Michigan, Michigan State, Stanford, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, etc. 

Obviously, we're not going to know who's in the BCS for a while, but there is a group of quality opponents for Houston to play. We all deserve to see that game.