Mountain West and the BCS

Occasionally I will post about something other than the NBA and this weekend after seeing Texas Tech beat Texas, I wanted to write about college football and the polling system. I actually like the polls, I've always liked the polls. I've liked waiting for the new polls to come out to see who was going to move up and move down and the new teams each week getting ranked. The lack of science behind it, along with the bias of voting on teams that coaches and writers know well and don't know well make it fun to see what other people are thinking. It's like reading an interesting opinion piece from another part of the country except that opinion then turns into fact. Some of the fun of the selection committee for the NCAA basketball tourney is that they have to make decisions, human decisions to determine what teams get in and are left out and it is not purely determined by wins and losses. Cinderella, after all is a love story and computers have never fallen in love.
The top three in the polls I don't have any issue with - BCS conference teams with undefeated records - SEC, BIG TEN and BIG12 but then you have a whole bunch of one loss teams before you get to Utah. Now if there was an undefeated team in the Big East, ACC or PAC 10 where would they rank at this point in the season? I imagine somewhere between 4 and 7 but not as low as UTAH. Does that make sense when the MWC is probably at worst the fourth best conference this year? Why does USC get so much respect even though it plays in a very bad PAC 10 this year? Why is OK state ranked as high as it is? Both TCU(Oklahoma and BYU) and OK ST(Missouri and Texas) played 2 top 10 teams and both went 1-1 but OK state is ranked even higher than a undefeated Utah team. Perhaps it is because the toughest part of the MWC schedule has yet to come, with Utah and TCU playing this week and BYU and Utah playing later on but if Utah goes undefeated in the MWC, it shouldn't be ranked lower than any one loss program this year. I'm not saying that should hold true every year but when your conference plays out of conference BCS teams and wins like the MWC has, has three teams in the top 20 and you go undefeated and you are not even mentioned in the championship talk, then there is a problem with the system. If TCU, BYU and Utah all end up with one loss in conference play, it would be nice if one of them were rewarded with a BCS bowl for playing in a tougher conference. If not, then why not be the best school in a bad conference like Boise State and just win out?
As much as people would like to believe that the poll reflects only the current year, that has never really been the case. It is a composite of the past five to ten years with the added benefit of history if your school has a good football pedigree. You saw it this year at how quickly schools like Alabama and Penn State jumped into the polls just for starting the season 4 and 0 against terrible non conference opponents. It is like pollsters want to rank these guys and as soon as any small reason to justify it comes up, they get ranked. Notre Dame wins 2 or 3 games in a row and people are talking about ranking them. Good example this year is Florida State. A one loss Florida State team that beats up on bad teams gets ranked ahead of BYU last week and then this week they get exposed and lose but somehow still manage to hang on in the polls. That is history taking care of its own. Boise State is a beneficiary of its recent success. Coaches and the media see it as a credible program and even though it has only beaten a mediocre Oregon team and plays in a very weak conference, it is ranked as high as it is due to its five year record. That win against Oklahoma is still paying dividends for them almost three years later. I suspect that if it was San Jose State that was undefeated with the same wins, they would be ranked closer to where Ball State is ranked.
In reality there are only about 20 schools that can be in the championship game and none of them are in the non BCS. BYU was perhaps the notable exception due to the confluence of a couple of factors. One, due to having 2 good seasons in a row, the school was ranked well in the preseason. Two, the Mountain West turned out to be a lot better than the ACC, BIG EAST and the PAC 10 which legitimizes their regular season. Three, and maybe most importantly, it has a national following and has won a national championship which puts history on their side - meaning that pollsters don't see it as an affront to college football to have them play in a big game. The bottom line is that schools without a legacy of football greatness playing well is embarrassing for the college football elite, like a down season of sorts and the powers that be are not ready to relinquish what they feel they have earned. Even though 2 non-BCS teams can qualify for BCS bowls, and this year two will definitely qualify, there will never be more than one due to lost revenue and pressure from BCS conferences to protect their own teams.
The MWC might end up shooting itself in the foot by Utah beating TCU this week and then losing to BYU in the final week. BYU, TCU and Utah in that order will be ranked in the top 20 but behind Boise State. What if BYU beats a 6th ranked Utah team on the final weekend and jump from 13 to 9? Will a one loss team make it to a BCS bowl? In theory, all three MWC teams could qualify for the BCS and so could Boise State. Sadly the second and third places prizes are the disgusting Las Vegas Bowl and even worse the Poinsettia Bowl. Can't the MWC get some decent deals?