Comments on: BCS Busters: How Good is 12-0? http://manzine.org/2009/09/28/bcs-busters-how-good-is-12-0/ Lifestyle magazine for men by men. Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:14:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Trumwill http://manzine.org/2009/09/28/bcs-busters-how-good-is-12-0/#comment-411 Trumwill Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:48:13 +0000 http://manzine.org/?p=1584#comment-411 Several years back, during the big conference shake-up, we were told over and over again that a lot of these schools trading up conferences are going to have an awfully hard time competing. Yet Cincinnati and South Florida (and Louisville, at least at first) were very competitive in the Big East. TCU is competitive in the Mountain West. Virginia Tech and Boston College have done fine in the ACC. Schools that have tanked have been the outliers. But <i>probably</i> true that a conference swap equals at least a couple losses. It's difficult for a non-BCS conference to recruit to the same level as a BCS school, so week in and week out there probably would be some additional losses if they had suddenly play a much tougher schedule against teams that have been able to advertise their conference standing for years to recruit players. But they face an uphill climb in <i>so many ways</i> that complaints that it's "too easy" to go 12-0 in a weak conference (particularly when many of the complainers refuse to schedule said schools) fall on deaf ears with me. To me, the most important record is 3-1. That's the record of non-BCS teams in BCS games. When that number reaches 3-8 or somesuch, then we can talk about how the non-BCS teams don't deserve to be there. Even if they are, on the whole, less talented, they make up for it with their excitement. And it creates some pretty awesome games. Several years back, during the big conference shake-up, we were told over and over again that a lot of these schools trading up conferences are going to have an awfully hard time competing. Yet Cincinnati and South Florida (and Louisville, at least at first) were very competitive in the Big East. TCU is competitive in the Mountain West. Virginia Tech and Boston College have done fine in the ACC. Schools that have tanked have been the outliers.

But probably true that a conference swap equals at least a couple losses. It’s difficult for a non-BCS conference to recruit to the same level as a BCS school, so week in and week out there probably would be some additional losses if they had suddenly play a much tougher schedule against teams that have been able to advertise their conference standing for years to recruit players. But they face an uphill climb in so many ways that complaints that it’s “too easy” to go 12-0 in a weak conference (particularly when many of the complainers refuse to schedule said schools) fall on deaf ears with me.

To me, the most important record is 3-1. That’s the record of non-BCS teams in BCS games. When that number reaches 3-8 or somesuch, then we can talk about how the non-BCS teams don’t deserve to be there. Even if they are, on the whole, less talented, they make up for it with their excitement. And it creates some pretty awesome games.

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