Eating crow: Ball State is no joke
A couple weeks ago Ball State University turned in an unimpressive victory against fellow MAC opponent Miami of Ohio and I wrote how the Cardinals and the BCS were a joke.
Well, the BCS is still a joke – but Ball State isn’t. I was wrong about this team and I’m more than willing to eat crow. (I know a couple of Ball State fans that would be more than willing to watch me eat every bit of that crow, too.)
There are a lot of media outlets that assume that just because a team isn’t in one of college football’s main conferences (i.e. SEC, Big 12, Big 10, Pac-10, etc.), that they would never be able to compete with the big boys. I fell into that trap after watching the Cardinals a few weeks ago, but I was wrong in my assumptions. After beating top MAC teams in Central Michigan and Western Michigan the past two weeks, Ball State has more than proved that they are legit.
How do we know that Ball State wouldn’t compete with Oklahoma? Boise State certainly did when they beat the Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. It’s time to stop assuming that just because a team plays in the MAC that they couldn’t hold their own.
BSU’s Nate Davis has been one of the best quarterbacks in the nation and while he doesn’t face defenses as good as Alabama, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma every week, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t deserve the opportunity to see what he could do on a national stage. He has tremendous arm strength, great leadership and has showed all season that he’s a tremendous competitor.
We need a playoff in college football. Undefeated teams like Ball State, Utah and Boise State deserve the opportunity to see if they can compete against the likes of ‘Bama, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. If they get waxed like Hawaii did last year against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, so be it. But maybe they’ll surprise some people, too. The main thing is, they deserve a shot. And college football fans deserve a better system.
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Mmmmmm…wow…Ball State is totally for real. They’ve beat a ranked team this season, right?
No?
Oh, well…hmmm…they beat Central Michigan by 7. That’s impressive. Chris Kaman went there. So did Anthony Stalter. CMU must be good.
They beat Western too. Greg Jennings went there. So did my wife. They must have a good football team. They totally deserve to play for the national championship. Totally.
Schedule a BCS conference team with a record better than 3-9 and get back to me.
Easy there Bo Ryan’s star player…
I say Ball State at least deserves a chance to get waxed by one of the big boys.
Alabama is the #1 team in the nation and their list of wins includes ONE currently ranked team (a Georgia squad still benefiting from their preseason ranking). Their second best win was an overtime victory against LSU, currently ranked #28. Western Michigan’s current ranking? #29.
Dominating the #29 team in the country doesn’t even earn enough respect to stack up against Cincinnati or whatever 8-4 team comes out of the ACC, but barely edging the #28 team in the country is good enough to be the national champion?
Anth,
We should have listened to David Letterman.
Alabama will have to beat Florida to play in the BCS game. They beat three ranked opponents so far this season. You have to look at where the teams were ranked when they played as well as where they are ranked now. I’d also say that the average SEC opponent is a little better than the average MAC opponent, so navigating the SEC schedule without a loss is more impressive.
The problem with giving Ball State – a team that only managed to schedule Indiana as its biggest non-conference opponent – a shot in a proposed playoff system is that Utah and Boise State deserve a shot too. Now you’ve got three non-BCS teams and one or more of the big boys (USC? Texas Tech? Florida?) has to go.
At some point you have to draw the line.
John,
Yet another flaw with the college football system (and your logic) is the preseason ranking system. When big schools start out ranked and small schools don’t, it takes way too long to correct based on who is actually good. You (and many others) say this team beat X number of ranked teams – which means they were ranked at the time. So, you are saying it is more important for a team to beat Auburn at the beginning of the season than Central Michigan at the end just because Auburn was undeservedly in the top 25 to start with and CMU deservedly was 28th toward the end.
A second point is that scheduling happens so far in advance, a smaller school could have a big swing in talent during that time – so they sometimes don’t schedule big schools for that reason. Ball State has played Florida, Michigan, Kansas State and Nebraska in the past 8 years. Unfortunately, this was the first year without any of them on the schedule. But who could predict they would have a team that could compete at this level?
In both cases, the goal is to determine who the best teams are. Only those who are incapable of knowing a good team when they see one fall back on who they are playing and what conference they come from. Do they deserve a BCS title game – no. Do they deserve a BCS game more than Ohio State, Cincinnati or the ACC champion – yes.
Stalter – sorry for calling you an idiot. I didn’t mean you specifically – just those in the media that are in love with the big conferences and have some effect on the bowl match-ups. I applaud your crow story, and you just won a new reader for your honesty.
Pat – I appreciate your comments and I welcome your opinions on all subjects.
If you read us regularly, you’ll know that we’ll call ourselves out for being wrong. We’re fans – just like you.
Welcome abroad!