Major Football

Boise State has been very boisterous this week about calling out all the major football programs that they will play them in their house without expecting a return date. Why not? Boise State cannot get anyone to play a home and home so it's time to build a program Bowden style. Prior to Bobby Bowden at Florida State the independent Seminoles not only couldn't beat anyone but they were not playing anyone of a decent caliber. Than came the savior of Tallahassee football, Bobby Bowden fresh off the turnip truck from West Virginia. In Bowden's second year the Noles were winners of all but two games and in four years the Noles led by future professional wrestling strongman All-American nose tackle Ron Simmons FSU went undefeated during the regular season before getting shellacked by the Oklahoma Sooners on a New Year's Day Orange Bowl.

Well so far the Bowden plan is not working for the smurf turf Broncos. No one wants to play Boise State. The last big road game by Boise State against a top opponent without a home and home agreement was Georgia where the Bulldogs dealt the Broncos
a beat down to the tune of 48-13 between the hedges. So what is to fear? You get a high profile game at home. You get a non-conference test that will boost your strength of schedule which goes a long way in the BCS computer tallies. You get big time television coverage that is a recruiting tool for top talent. The downside is if you lose you become the laughing stock of major college football losing to a Boise State. Look at this season, Oregon was left for dead after being dominated by Boise on the smurfy fields of gridiron nightmares. Oregon just dominated USC but when the final BCS rankings come out prior to the bowl season how will they be able to top the presumably undefeated Broncos for a national title shot?

The solution is conference re-alignment. The obvious is to invite Boise State to the Pacific Ten Conference. Chances are that will not happen. So it's time for the Mountain West Conference to make the call. The Mountain West the old WAC conference needs a tenth team to get an even number of conference members. Utah has two BCS bowl wins in two opportunities one under Urban Meyer defeating the Pitt Panthers en route to an undefeated season in 2004 and than turning the stomach of Paul "Bear" Bryant ghost embarrassing the two touchdown favorite Crimson Tide in last year's Sugar Bowl in SEC country. Outside of the Utes in the Mountain West TCU under Gary Patterson is normally one of the top defenses in the country and routinely winning double digit games per year. In recent years they have big quality wins against the likes of Oklahoma and Boise State. This year BYU a former national championship title winner during the era of NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young got a huge win in Dallas this year against Oklahoma. Add Boise State into the mix who won their only BCS bowl game in one of the most exciting bowl games in the history of college football with the 2006 Fiesta Bowl with a barn burning victory over Oklahoma, a team that has been to four national title games in the past ten years including one national title and a very rich football history including the owners of the longest winning streak in college football.

Joining the Mountain West solves Boise's problem of playing top competition and it also gives the Mountain West some teeth to join the big boy club for an automatic bid to a BCS bowl with four teams that have top football programs.