Why did the Boise State Broncos finish #4?
One Bronco Nation Under God put together an interesting breakdown of the final AP vote for the 2009-10 college football season.
Why is it interesting? Well, Alabama finished #1, as they should. But it was Texas, not Florida, that finished #2. The Gators finished third and the Broncos finished at #4. The site points out a couple of voters who actually had the Broncos ranked lower than #4:
[Craig] James was far and away the most anti-Boise AP voter of the bunch. Voting Boise State at No. 7 is inexcusable. Voting TCU at No. 14 is just as bad.
The worst part is that the Broncos only finished four points behind Florida in the AP poll. Hmm, where might you find four extra points? If Craig James had voted like a rational human being, the Broncos could have at least got three more points (if James put them at No. 4).
James had Ohio State, Penn State and Iowa ahead of the Broncos. I guess he’s a big fan of the Big Ten.
Then there’s the case of the only other writer in the country to put the Broncos lower than #4 — Kirk Bohls, of Austin, Texas.
He dropped the Broncos below … wait for it … THE Ohio State University. We’ll laugh about this later. I swear we will. Bohls and James were the only ones with OSU in front of BSU. Had Bohls swapped the Broncos and the Buckeyes, Boise State would have picked up an extra AP point and been tied with Florida for No. 3.
In addition to James’ #7 ranking and Bohls’ #5 ranking, 22 voters had the Broncos at #2, six ranked them #3 and 30 voters had Boise State at #4, so it appears that the voters are split into two camps: 1) those that believe that the Broncos belong (ranking them #2 or #3), 2) and those that still don’t think they are as good as one-loss BCS teams like Texas and Florida (ranking them #4 or lower).
The bottom line is that nothing has changed. A Colt McCoy-less Texas squad looked good enough against Alabama to stay at #2, while Florida thrashed a head coach-less Cincy squad in the Sugar Bowl. Boise State played TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, which made for a “fun” (i.e. non-BCS) matchup, but neither team got the opportunity to play against the big boys.
And that’s exactly the way the BCS wanted it. If Boise State and TCU got matchups with BCS schools this bowl seasons and won (or at least made it a game), it would add more fuel to the we-need-a-playoff fire.
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Yep, it was pretty much guaranteed that whoever won the BSU-TCU game wasn’t going to get the respect they deserved because they “only beat another non-BCS team”.
College football is a joke, it really is.
We can all agree that the system is a joke. The only legitimate way to settle this stuff is on the field.
That said, does anyone really think that Florida wouldn’t beat the living crap out of Boise if they had a chance to play? Same with Alabama and probably Texas?
Also, Craig James is an idiot for putting Boise so low. I think #4 is right for Boise. That said, I would bet that Ohio State and Iowa would both be favored to beat them if they were going to play today.
How many people gave Boise a chance against Oklahoma a couple years ago? How many people gave NCSU a shot against Houston in 1983? Or thought that George Mason would make a Final Four?
There’s a reason these things are actually played out rather than voted on in every sport that makes any sense.
Yes – upsets happen, and they deserve a shot. But if someone has to be objective and vote on the final rankings (under our current crappy system), there’s no way you rank Boise over Florida.
Gentlemen… sadly it is all about money… right now how the BCS is set up it pays to be a power house… I personally don’t believe that any conference can hang with the SEC or Big 12, but that’s just my opinion… asking the the BCS to quit it’s current system is like asking my beloved Irish to give up their TV contract and join a conference… sadly, we will never know what the Boise’s and TCU’s are truely capable of until they get a tougher non-conference schedule and/or we move to a play off system… My personal top 10 to close the season
1) Alabama
2) Florida
3) Boise State
4) Texas
5) Iowa
6) Cincy
7) TCU
8) Ohio State
9) BYU
10)Central Michigan
Listen people, it’s simple. Teams like Boise the last few years and Utah last year do not deserve a shot at the NC under the current system. Yes, they can get up for one game (Utah-Bama 08) or Boise-Oklahoma 06 but you put those guys in say The SEC and they’d have to play faster more physical teams every week without ANY GIMMIES and they would lose 3 or 4 games every season no doubt!
This isn’t a surprise. Didn’t we all suspect this once the Fiesta Bowl matchup was announced?
Short of a true playoff, the next viable option would be for conferences to combine and have a conference championship like the Big 12 and SEC. Teams like Boise State, BYU, Utah, Louisville, TCU, etc. would join the Pac-10, Big 10 or Big East. Notre Dame is the wild card.
Cant understand the continued trashing of the BCS, everyone seems to forget the purpose of it, to match #1 vs #2, thats it. we forget in prior years alabama would have been in the sugar bowl and texas would have been in the orange bowl. if there s a beef its with the voters not the bcs.