Arguing Both Sides – Oregon Ducks and Boise State Broncos: Who Deserves to be Higher in the Polls?
There were plenty of teams rooting for Oregon to beat USC last night, but Boise State had more to root for than anyone. Not only did the loss bounce the Trojans from the national title picture, but it also strengthened Boise State’s resume, as their win over Oregon got even stronger.
Which brings us to a very interesting dilemma; how are we going to deal with the BCS ranking of these two teams? Both schools have very strong arguments, and thanks to the largely imperfect system that is the BCS, no one answer will satisfy everyone.
Let’s just say that Boise State and Oregon both run the table (not too much of a stretch with the way these two teams are playing). After all the smoke has cleared, who should be ahead of who?
THE OREGON ARGUMENT
Alright, you beat us, fair and square. We can make as many excuses as we want about how Jermiah Masoli wasn’t in form yet, how our offense is based on timing and misdirection and we were clearly out of sync due to the fact that it was the first game of the season; but none of that changes the fact that you beat us.
It was your first game of the season, too. And we had the huge revenge chip on our shoulder from when you came into our stadium and beat us last year, and we talked plenty of smack in the media that we didn’t back up. No excuses, no negating your win, you were the better team on that day. Congratulations.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get to reality. What the hell else have you done this season? To this point, the only other win that is remotely “impressive” is @Fresno State. At 5-3, they’ve put together a decent season, and their three losses all came to good teams (Wisconsin, Boise State, Cincinnati).
Wow. There isn’t a single ranked team on this list after us. @Tulsa was probably a good looking game when you scheduled it, but that offense is just a shell of what it used to be, and they are just a mediocre Conference-USA team. Miami of Ohio at 1-8, Bowling Green at 3-5; not only are three of your four out-of-conference games against non-BCS team; none of them even have a winning record!
Idaho (7-2) and Nevada (5-3) are the only teams with winning records left on your schedule; and you get both of them at home, just like you had us at home. To be clear, your season as a whole has one excellent win.
After that, there isn’t a single ranked team that you play. Your other three out-of-conference wins are pathetic. You play in an extremely weak conference, and to top it all off, you had no challenging road games.
You beat us on your home turf, which was an excellent win. We just handed the #5 USC Trojans, one of the most dominant teams of the last decade, their biggest lost since 1997 on our home turf, which was also an excellent win. Let’s go ahead and call that a wash.
Honestly, 10-1 over the rest of our schedule is SUBSTANTIALLY more impressive than the 12-0 over the rest of yours. It isn’t even close. Just our win over Utah (handing them their only loss of the season) blows out your second best win (Fresno State? Idaho?) by miles.
Crushing (then ranked #6) California 42-3, a team that still has a good chance of being a 10-win team, was another excellent statement game on our resume. I suppose you are matching up the leftover between Fresno State and Idaho in this spot? Tulsa? Nevada? Really?
Assuming we win out and add @Stanford, @Arizona, and Oregon State to our season resume, how can you with a straight face tell us that we should be below you in the polls? You beat us, we beat USC, that’s even. After that, our wins over Utah, California, Stanford, Arizona, and Oregon State are all more impressive than any of your other wins. Note that I didn’t even mention @Washington, who destroyed an Idaho team that is going to be considered one of your Top 5 wins, which you get at home no less.
Congratulations, you beat us. It was a hell of a game. But a season isn’t defined by a single game; it is defined by the whole body of work that went into the entire season. Your “we beat you head to head” argument has some weight, but not nearly enough weight to change the fact that our season has been infinitely more impressive than yours has.
THE BOISE STATE ARGUMENT
Why do we even bother to show up on Saturdays anymore?
No matter what we do, it’s never good enough for anyone. Do you think we are happy that the competition around us in this conference never gets any better? When June Jones had Hawaii playing at an elite level, at least there was one WAC game a year that the nation had some interest in. Now it’s just us and a bunch of Play-Doh.
The system is broken, and we don’t just mean that in the clichéd way that you’ve grown accustomed to hearing it, that non-BCS teams have no chance at all. That’s true too, but the other issue is that there is so much more of an emphasis on losses than wins when you are a big BCS school.
Just look at the top two teams right now; Florida and Texas. Other than Alabama, no other team controls their own destiny like these two do; win out, and they are heading to the national championship game. Look at their out-of-conference schedules!
Florida: Charleston Southern, Troy, Florida International, Florida State
Texas: Louisiana-Monroe, @Wyoming, UTEP, UCF
Wow, way to put yourself out there guys! Florida would probably have preferred to schedule another cupcake instead of FSU if not for the obligation to play them or Miami.
The point is simply this; if you are a nationally loved team that is ranked high in the preseason polls, there is no reason to challenge yourself out-of-conference. It’s better to go undefeated with an easy schedule than to give yourselves more mines to navigate through.
Do you know how many of these big schools we’ve called and tried to schedule games with? Unlike the Florida’s and Texas’s of the world, we realize that running the table won’t be enough, and we need to do the best we can with our out-of-conference games.
But in a system like this one that punishes you so harshly for losses, why would any team ranked in the top 5-10 preseason schedule us? The risk far outweighs the reward. We are the winningest team of the decade. We scare big teams. They laugh us and our record off as “just because of our weak conference”, yet they refuse to prove it on the football field.
But you did accept the challenge, Oregon, and for that we thank you. Because you guys realized that running the table or being a one loss team wasn’t going to be enough to jump the Florida’s and Oklahoma’s and Ohio State’s of the world. You needed quality wins to prove yourself, just like we did. It worked out for both of us.
And guess what? WE BEAT YOU. TWICE. When all of the nation’s best teams turned us down out of fear, you accepted to play us out of mutual respect. You knew that wins over us would help validate you, even if it meant risking losses. We both came into this season with national championship aspirations, and we both knew that the path would start for one of us and end for one of us on our blue turf.
And we won. If you had beaten us, you’d be arguing that you should have your place in the top-two based on your excellent resume, and you’d be right in doing so. Yet when we beat you, and you go on to have a national-championship caliber season otherwise, now you think you should be above us?
Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. People can complain about how we have no competition, but you guys emerging as a national power only proves once again that we can beat top-tier competition, and we belong firmly in the mix for national title consideration.
THE WRAP-UP
As it stands today, Boise State is sitting 2-3 spots ahead of Oregon in both the AP and the USA Today Poll. But as Boise State continues to beat up WAC opponents and Oregon continues picking up quality Pac-10 wins, it will be an interesting month of November.
If one of Florida and Alabama remain undefeated as does Texas and/or Iowa, the Oregon and Boise State placement in relation to one another won’t matter much; Oregon will be tied in to the Rose Bowl, leaving Boise State in their same position among the other at-larges. But if things start to get hazy down the stretch as these things sometimes do in college football…
You’d better pick your side of the fence now.
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