College football’s Bowl Championship Series is built on a simple assumption: the six “automatic-qualifying” or “AQ” conferences and Notre Dame are categorically better than the five “non-AQ” conferences. It’s why Notre Dame—up until a few weeks ago—had the same number of BCS Board votes as the 51 non-AQ schools combined. It’s why Boise State never had a realistic shot at playing for the national title, even before the season began. And it’s why TCU will fetch only one-third of an AQ team’s share of revenue for playing in a BCS bowl.
For BCS apologists, a talent and quality-of-play disparity excuses such disparate post-season payouts and competitive opportunities.
Even when non-AQ teams win on the playing field, their success is discounted with claims that “they didn’t play anyone.”
Non-AQ teams have only a limited number of opportunities to play AQ teams and rebut these critics. Quality non-AQ teams, for example, can have difficulty getting “power conference” teams to play, as Boise State recently learned when it found no takers for its generous offer to travel anywhere and play anyone in 2011. And regular season games against AQ schools scheduled years in advance also may fail to yield a real chance to gain national respect if the AQ team unexpectedly stumbles, as TCU found out this season when it played division power-turned-doormat Virginia earlier this year.
BCS bowls have offered the one consistent avenue to shake the foundations of college football’s caste system. And non-AQs have been notably successful, posting a 3-1 record.
As the non-AQ wins stack up, the entire BCS structure loses legitimacy.
This post-season, two non-AQ teams received BCS bowl berths. TCU automatically qualified for an invite under BCS rules, while Boise State received an “at-large” invitation—a first for a non-AQ school. The teams will play each other in tonight’s Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, a match-up one sportswriter is calling the “Separate But Equal Bowl.”
Public discussion about the TCU-Boise State pairing has largely centered on whether the BCS leaned on the Fiesta Bowl to pit the non-AQs against each other. It is irrelevant, though, whether collusion occurred or Fiesta officials acted independently. No matter who made the pairing decision, its effect is the same—AQ teams were shielded from competition against two strong non-AQ teams. Neither team will get an opportunity to prove that the BCS’s central assumptions about talent and quality-of-play are false.
These past few weeks, sports commentators have often said that the BCS avoided “chaos” or “Armageddon” when Texas pulled-out a narrow victory against Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship and averted a chain reaction that would’ve excluded multiple deserving teams from BCS participation. A Texas loss would’ve certainly resulted in another dicey situation. But Playoff PAC thinks true BCS chaos would’ve ensued if TCU and Boise State would’ve dominated AQ opponents, bringing non-AQs to a 5-1 win-loss record in BCS bowls. A 5-1 record would’ve been undeniable evidence that the entire BCS structure is a farce. A 5-1 record would’ve irrefutably exposed the BCS’s treatment of non-AQs as regionalism.
Forget about the anarchy that would’ve reigned if the Big 12 Championship had turned out differently. Forget about the hypothetical BCS disasters that would’ve occurred if Nebraska’s kick-off specialist weren’t inebriated or if the refs hadn’t thrown a second back on the clock for Texas. The actual moment the BCS avoided Armageddon was on Selection Sunday when TCU and Boise State got stuffed into the “Separate But Equal” Bowl.