BCS debate over Boise State heats up again

It is doubtful that Sunday's first BCS poll will soothe the populists and conspiracy theorists angry over Boise State's traditional outsider status in college football. For the first time, Boise is projected to be ranked No. 1 in the convoluted BCS process, but the general expectation is that power and money will conspire, in the end, to keep the Idaho team out of the championship game, and the whole playoffs-vs.-polls hot potato isn't about to go away.

Jay Coleman, a University of North Florida business professor who has studied bias in sports polling (even as he compiles his own weekly rankings) is among those who offers the "I'll believe it when I see it" expectation of Boise playing for the national title.

Coleman currently has Boise State at No. 1, which puts him in the consensus with 25 other systems among the staggering 108 in existence. (See "CF Comparison" at mratings.com for the complete list, which goes far beyond the Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls to the Huckleberry, Junky's and Boggo.)

"It is hard to make a case," Coleman said in a telephone interview, "that teams below Boise are any more deserving [of BCS championship-game consideration] than Boise is." Coleman, using a calculus that minimizes the number of times a game's winner is ranked behind the team it defeated, puts AP's No. 1, Ohio State, at No. 5, though he agrees that Oregon is No. 2.

Boise backers -- and proponents of a "fair chance" for teams from the five Division I-A conferences not granted an automatic BCS bowl bid -- see an evil in pollsters keeping Boise (and its non-power conference twin, TCU) routinely below the sport's big names. Or poising the Nebraskas, Oklahomas, LSUs, Auburns, etc., within striking distance of Boise, so that the old "strength of schedule" argument can lift familiar title contenders into the 1-2 spots in time for the championship game.

But novelist John Brandon, a Florida grad who admits "living for college football," argued in his blog for GQ in September that Boise fans should be careful what they wish for.

"See, friends," wrote Brandon, author of the acclaimed "Citrus County," "what Boise does each year is take a calculated gamble. They choose to go undefeated and cross their fingers about the reward. At worst, they go to a BCS bowl. Pretty smart. Pretty well-hedged. You're from Idaho and play in a crappy conference and you get to play a BCS game every year. Not bad at all."

It makes no sense, Brandon argued, for Boise to play more big-name schools -- risking mid-season losses -- and move to a power conference or agitate for a playoff system. With a football budget that is one-sixth of Ohio State's, Boise theoretically would have difficulty competing, week-in and week-out, with the bigger boys.

"It depends on what you're looking for as a Boise fan," Brandon said in a telephone interview. "If it's being talked about and seen on ESPN as a team that can mess things up, all that would go away if they were just another team in a power conference. Like, no one talks about Iowa, even though they're in the Top 10. In a way, it's better for Boise to be where they are."

That is what Coleman compared to the old saying, "I'd rather keep my mouth shut and have people think me a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt."

"Maybe," Coleman said, "you'd rather play a bunch of lesser lights and win, and if you do that long enough, and stay in the conversation long enough, somebody might give you a shot. I do think that Boise, and to a significant extent, TCU, has now been in the mix long enough that they're earning a degree of respect.

"Boise has gotten brownie points for beating a traditional power, and it's now to the point that, if a traditional power beats Boise, that team gets brownie points."

Brandon, who calls himself a playoff advocate, meanwhile has settled on a "stance, the last couple of years, that I just don't want to waste any more time thinking about it. All the arguments have been laid out, everybody knows the possible scenarios, everybody knows that every other year there will be a controversy over who gets to play [in the title game]."

For all those still arguing, the first televised BCS Countdown Show will air on ESPN at 8:15 p.m. Sunday.