It’s deep night on a cold Tuesday in late October. The setting is the blue turf of Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho, where the home-town Broncos have just moved to 7-0. Spirits are high for anyone who follows the Broncos. They have just blown out another team—Louisiana Tech—49-20. Although compared to what the rest of the country is used to, this is a close game for Boise State. Despite the fact that Boise State has won every game except for one—Virginia Tech—by double digits, all Boise State fans are filled with the same two feelings they are filled with every year; hope and dread.
Boise State know that this year gives them the best shot that they will ever have of playing in a BCS championship game. However, the Broncos are also aware that if any two AQ conference teams go undefeated, it will leave them on the outside again. Boise knows this because after opening the season ranked #3 in the country, they are still ranked #3 in the BCS. They have been leapfrogged in the rankings 3 times already and leapfrogged by Auburn in the BCS this week.
Boise’s best hope at a shot in the national title game is for all of the undefeated AQ conference teams to lose. However, even if this were to happen, it doesn’t guarantee Boise a spot in the national title game. Even if every other undefeated in the country loses, it is still conceivable (albeit unlikely) that they could be denied based on the 6 different computer rankings included in the BCS formula. It is, however, very likely that if a team (let’s say Oregon) is the only other undefeated team left after the regular season, they will not be included. That’s because if a 1-loss team from an AQ conference runs the table, that they will leap-frog Boise State and find themselves playing Oregon in the National Title Game. The fans at Boise State are most afraid of this scenario but are helpless to stop it. However, in terms of solving the problem of the BCS, this might be the best possible scenario that there is. Only once in the history of the BCS—Hawaii circa 2007—has there been a situation in which there have been 2 or less undefeated teams and one didn’t make the national title game. However, there is a major difference between Hawaii in 2007 and Boise State of this year. Boise State is a horse of a different color, since the 2006 Boise State team was 56-4. No, you didn’t read that wrong. In addition, they have beaten Oklahoma and TCU in BCS games, lost another bowl game to TCU by 1, beaten Oregon twice, beaten Oregon State twice, beaten Virginia Tech, and beaten Utah. In fact the only loss to an AQ team since 2006 that Boise has suffered was to Washington in 2007. Boise began this year at #3 in the country, and should they finish the year ranked #1 or #2 in the Coaches Poll, undefeated, and out of the national title game, there will be a bigger calling for a playoff than there has been in the history of the BCS.
The Boise State team resides in a place that I like to call the mid-major bubble. In this case, I am calling it the Boise State bubble because they are the best team in the mid-major bubble this year. I call it a bubble, because the mid-major (non-AQ conference) teams in the FBS are literally trapped within a bubble. Since the creation of the BCS, in 1998, this bubble has become more and more obvious with each passing season. There have been multiple mid-major undefeated teams—who have won BCS bowls—since the creation of the BCS. Not one of these teams has had the opportunity to play in a National Championship game.
The reason it is so difficult for a mid-major conference team to make a National Championship game is twofold. First and foremost is strength of schedule. When a dominant mid-major emerges—such as Utah in 2004 and 2008 or Boise State in 2009—they cruise through their conference because of how weak the rest of the conference is. That doesn’t mean that a team like Boise or Utah is incapable of beating an Alabama or Oregon, but they aren’t as battle tested. Alabama has to go through a grueling schedule every season, due to the fact that they play in an ultra-competitive conference. Boise, on the other hand, fatten their record every year by beating the likes of Louisiana Tech and San Jose State. When comparing the resumes of these two teams, one-loss Alabama is still much more impressive than no-loss Boise State. The second problem that mid-major powers encounter goes hand in hand with strength of schedule; their opponents’ recruiting ability. A team like Boise State is forever in exile in the strength of schedule department because no one else in their conference can recruit like they can. A team like San Jose State is never going to be able to recruit a blue-chip prospect as long as Boise State is dominant. No top prospect will ever be tempted to go to a team which gets repeatedly pounded every year. This means a team like Boise State will never have comparable competition to a team from the SEC. What results from these factors is a ceiling for all mid-major teams. All of the mid-major teams go into every year knowing that their ceiling—barring an absolute miracle—is playing in a BCS game; a BCS game that is not the National Championship game.
Now I am not saying that I believe that an undefeated Boise State team is more deserving of a spot in the National Championship game over a one-loss Alabama team. I do not think that Boise is more deserving at all to be honest. I think Boise is an elite team, but I also believe that it is nearly impossible to go undefeated in the SEC without a good-deal of luck. However I do believe that teams like Boise, TCU, and Utah shouldn’t be excluded from the National Championship game before the season even starts. Yet, this is the conundrum which the BCS faces.
This problem requires a solution. That solution should be some form of playoffs. The BCS in and of itself is fine. It does a fairly good job of ranking the ability of teams based on their performance and the competition that they faced. The problem arises because only two teams can be chosen to play in the National Championship game. The problem with having only the top two teams play for the title is that there will always be controversy. There has rarely been a year, since the inception of the BCS, that there hasn’t been a controversy over who should play for the title or who should play in other BCS bowls. The BCS has shown that mid-majors have almost no chance to play in the title game. However, the BCS has also shown that mid-majors have the ability to finish in the top 8 of the BCS standings. The significance of mid-major teams being able to finish in the top 8 means that if there was a playoff format, the mid-major teams would be more than capable of making the playoffs and would be given an opportunity they never had before; the ability to play for a national championship.
My playoff system proposal is simple: First the regular season must be slightly shortened. This means that teams which play in conferences without a championship game, are limited to only 12 regular season games. Teams that play in a conference with a championship game, must have their regular season shortened to 11 games (3 non-conference opponents and 8 conference games), with the conference championship being the 12th game. In addition, the amount of bye weeks that each team has must be shortened to 1 (in the current formats many teams have as many as 3 byes). Shortening the byes and regular season would allow for the first two rounds of the playoffs to be played when the regular FBS season would normally be completed. You would keep the current BCS system in place. Following the regular season and conference title games, you would take the top 8 teams in the BCS standings and set up a standard playoff system with them (#1 in the BCS vs. #8 etc.). The first two rounds will be played at each higher seeds home-field in the two weeks following the regular season. After those two weeks there will be the usual 3-4 week layoff leading up to the bowl season and the National Championship Game will be played on its regularly allotted day by the NCAA.
Critics of the playoff system will point out several flaws. First that there will still be controversy over who the last team into the playoffs is. For example, a team ranked 8th in the coaches poll could miss the playoffs because a team ranked 9th or 10th is higher in the BCS. However, this is not really that big of a flaw, the fact of the matter is that if a team is ranked 8th in the BCS, they have minimal chance of winning on the road for two weeks and reaching the national championship game. Second, critics will say that it ruins the Bowl system. In actuality, this format doesn’t alter the bowl system at all. Think about this for a second…all a bowl really is, is a reward game for a team that plays .500 ball or better during the regular season. However, Bowl games really don’t mean anything, and the general public understands this. The only Bowl game that is anything other than a “reward” game is the National Championship Game. We already have a National Championship Game, and yet millions of people still watch the other Bowl games. I see no reason for this to change, if good college football games are on TV, people will still watch them and the schools will still make money from their Bowl games. I would even say keep the current BCS Bowls format together. If a team that should be playing in the Rose Bowl (Pac-10 or Big-10 school), but made the National Championship Game, than we can still do what we do now; have the team that finishes 2nd in their conference play for them.
By creating a playoff system, two things are simultaneously accomplished. First the NCAA will have accomplished something that seemed previously impossible: giving dominant mid-major teams the chance to play for a National Championship. The second thing that will be accomplished, is if a mid-major runs the table in the playoffs and wins the National Championship, there will be no debate whether or not they are deserving of the title because they will have beaten 3 of the top 8 schools in the country to do it. The second point is the most important, because even if Boise State bucks the trend and wins a championship this year, people are still going to say that they didn’t deserve to be there because they didn’t beat good enough opponents. By setting up a system that would force Boise to have to consecutively beat 3 top 8 teams in a row, the strength of schedule argument against the mid-majors would be a mute point.
These changes—or some form of them—may come to college football soon. However, it likely requires another year in which every college football fan is disappointed in the BCS again. In the current system Boise State—and every other non-AQ conference FBS team-- are trapped in an inescapable bubble, with a ceiling of being in a BCS game. The solution to popping this bubble is by incorporating a playoff system similar to the one which I proposed. However, this year is getting so crazy that Boise could conceivably end up in a national championship game. As a fan of the underdog, I would love to see this happen. But if Boise State were to make it this year and win it, the BCS would simply say “See Boise did it, everyone can do it,” and nothing would be changed. If this happens and nothing is changed, it might be another 10-15 years before we see a mid-major make a run for the National Championship game. Therefore, as a proponent of parody and playoffs, my head tells me that it would be great for college football if Boise State were to get screwed by the BCS again.
College football has a conundrum. That conundrum is the BCS. It is a ruthlessly efficient machine that puts a ceiling on mid-major conference teams. However, the BCS in and of itself is good. A one-loss Alabama team has proven itself more than an undefeated Boise State team; by virtue of their strength of schedule. Neither of these teams should be excluded from having a chance to play for a National Championship. Therefore, taking the BCS rankings and converting them to playoffs is by far the most logical solution to the problem. Until this happens there will always be a conundrum, Boise fans will always feel hope and dread, and true college football fans will be watching the rest of this season from the edge of their seats wondering if Boise can do the unthinkable and burst the mid-major bubble. These fans will be keeping alive the same argument the BCS hears every year: does strength of schedule trump rank? We will never really know until he FBS changes. This is the Boise State Bubble.
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