BYU/Utah/Boise vs. the ACC champ?
From the "getting way ahead of ourselves" file...
Glancing at the BCS bowl selection order just now, I realized something dreadfully annoying. The Orange Bowl gets last pick in the BCS rotation this year, meaning the least attractive "at-large" team (from the bowls' money-grubbing perspective) will fall to them. If there's an automatic mid-major qualifier, that team almost always ends up in this final slot, like the fat kid in kickball. So, barring unforeseen developments, you can slot the BYU/Utah winner -- or, if both of those teams end up with a loss, then Boise State, if the Broncos win out -- into the Orange Bowl.
And who will they play? Why, the ACC champion, of course -- i.e., the "tallest person in a group of midgets," as a pundit once aptly put it. So we could easily end up with a situation where an unbeaten BYU, Utah or Boise State gets the "opportunity" to "prove itself" against... a totally disrespected ACC champ, thus earning zero respect with a win. This would be like Utah vs. Pittsburgh all over again. Argh.
The best hope for the mid-majors in this regard, aside from sneaking into the national title game (which looks increasingly unlikely, as the pollsters leapfrog various one-loss teams ahead of the mid-major contenders), is for the Big East to produce a champion that's totally unattractive from a bowl's perspective -- say, UConn or Cincinnati, for example -- such that the Sugar Bowl, which picks second-to-last, would actually prefer BYU, Utah or Boise to the alternative.
If that happens, we could end up with a juicy Sugar Bowl matchup between the SEC champ (or a top-notch at-large team, if the SEC champ goes to the title game) and a mid-major. This, unlike the Orange Bowl scenario, would give the mid-major team an actual opportunity to prove something in the eyes of the public. It would also, of course, render the Orange Bowl completely irrelevant to the national discussion, as it again hosts a Big East vs. ACC snooze-fest. But that's a small price to pay for a potential genuine BCS-buster, an Oklahoma-Boise type showdown. The 2009 Sugar Bowl would like the 2008 Georgia vs. Hawaii matchup, except this year, the mid-major team might actually have a snowball's chance in Hell.
P.S. One caveat: if North Carolina is the ACC champ, and UConn is the Big East champ, the powers-that-be would almost certainly try to avoid a UConn-UNC rematch in the Orange Bowl, which would probably set low-ratings records. Thus, even though the Sugar Bowl would probably prefer BYU/Utah/Boise to UConn, I suspect some deal would be worked out whereby the mid-major team would end up playing either the Huskies or the Tar Heels. In which case, again, argh.
P.P.S. On an utterly unrelated note, Rich Tellshow says Buffalo, currently 2-4, should be favored to win 5 of its remaining 6 games. That would get the Bulls to 7-5 -- their first winning season since joining Division 1-A -- and, dare I say it, bowl eligibility. Now let's see them do it! :)
Glancing at the BCS bowl selection order just now, I realized something dreadfully annoying. The Orange Bowl gets last pick in the BCS rotation this year, meaning the least attractive "at-large" team (from the bowls' money-grubbing perspective) will fall to them. If there's an automatic mid-major qualifier, that team almost always ends up in this final slot, like the fat kid in kickball. So, barring unforeseen developments, you can slot the BYU/Utah winner -- or, if both of those teams end up with a loss, then Boise State, if the Broncos win out -- into the Orange Bowl.
And who will they play? Why, the ACC champion, of course -- i.e., the "tallest person in a group of midgets," as a pundit once aptly put it. So we could easily end up with a situation where an unbeaten BYU, Utah or Boise State gets the "opportunity" to "prove itself" against... a totally disrespected ACC champ, thus earning zero respect with a win. This would be like Utah vs. Pittsburgh all over again. Argh.
The best hope for the mid-majors in this regard, aside from sneaking into the national title game (which looks increasingly unlikely, as the pollsters leapfrog various one-loss teams ahead of the mid-major contenders), is for the Big East to produce a champion that's totally unattractive from a bowl's perspective -- say, UConn or Cincinnati, for example -- such that the Sugar Bowl, which picks second-to-last, would actually prefer BYU, Utah or Boise to the alternative.
If that happens, we could end up with a juicy Sugar Bowl matchup between the SEC champ (or a top-notch at-large team, if the SEC champ goes to the title game) and a mid-major. This, unlike the Orange Bowl scenario, would give the mid-major team an actual opportunity to prove something in the eyes of the public. It would also, of course, render the Orange Bowl completely irrelevant to the national discussion, as it again hosts a Big East vs. ACC snooze-fest. But that's a small price to pay for a potential genuine BCS-buster, an Oklahoma-Boise type showdown. The 2009 Sugar Bowl would like the 2008 Georgia vs. Hawaii matchup, except this year, the mid-major team might actually have a snowball's chance in Hell.
P.S. One caveat: if North Carolina is the ACC champ, and UConn is the Big East champ, the powers-that-be would almost certainly try to avoid a UConn-UNC rematch in the Orange Bowl, which would probably set low-ratings records. Thus, even though the Sugar Bowl would probably prefer BYU/Utah/Boise to UConn, I suspect some deal would be worked out whereby the mid-major team would end up playing either the Huskies or the Tar Heels. In which case, again, argh.
P.P.S. On an utterly unrelated note, Rich Tellshow says Buffalo, currently 2-4, should be favored to win 5 of its remaining 6 games. That would get the Bulls to 7-5 -- their first winning season since joining Division 1-A -- and, dare I say it, bowl eligibility. Now let's see them do it! :)
posted by Brendan Loy at
10/14/2008 12:51:00 PM
