What can you do when you can't do any better?

Imagine your major college football team winning its first game and sitting at #3 in both major polls. Imagine your team winning its next eight games while the two schools ahead of and behind you lose multiple times. Can you imagine your unbeaten team atop both polls and likely the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings as well?

Well, you can't if that major college football team of yours is the Boise State University Broncos. In an act of either coordinated sabotage or collective incompetence, neither the writers nor the coaches have moved Boise State up into the top position at any point during the season. Not even for one week.

While the 9-0 Broncos have managed to maintain the number three ranking, three teams (Auburn, Oregon & TCU) have already passed them in each poll--despite the fact that the Broncos have done nothing to justify being passed by anyone. Nine games under their belt, and not a single underwhelming performance on their resume. Yet they've actually lost their position twice in the AP (writer's) poll and three times in the USA Top 25 (coaches) poll. They even dropped in the rankings after a 63-0 victory on the road.

BSU is currently one of four BCS unbeatens, along with the three aforementioned leap-froggers. Conventional wisdom would suggest that Boise is at most two upsets away from playing for a BCS Championship. As we have seen time and time again, however, conventional wisdom--or wisdom at all for that matter--has no place in the BCS, much less major college football. Just as Oklahoma and Oregon and Auburn appeared out of nowhere to jump over the Broncos, you can bet that some one-loss flavor of the month would do so as well, if our hand-wringing media friends have anything to do with it.

No other varsity collegiate sport allows one of its teams to win every game on its schedule and not even compete for a national championship. So how do you explain the blue-horse hatred? Is it simply a fear of bad TV ratings come bowl time? Is it a money thing? Is Boise seen as the major college equivalent of a ladder-climbing female executive in an old-boys-network corporation? I wish I knew.

In rationalizing their discrimination, NCAA power brokers and media "experts" contradict themselves with the effortless frequency of an election-year politician. Here's a sample of what's been said and why it's either untrue or mysteriously not the case with other schools:

1. Boise State hasn't played anyone. WRONG. First off, they gave up a home game to travel 2,500 miles to Washington, D.C. and beat Virginia Tech, who was #10 at the time (and have since climbed back to #16 in the BCS Standings). They defeated #24 Oregon State by double digits, and while the Beavers have hovered around .500 this season, they do happen to host #1 Oregon in their annual Civil War in a few weeks. I have a feeling Oregon won't have as easy a time as the Broncos did.

2. Yeah, but Boise State could never beat the top teams from the major conferences. You mean teams like top-ranked Oregon from the Pac-10, which they've defeated the past two seasons--including 2008's 37-32 victory at Autzen Stadium in Eugene (see pic), where the Ducks owned a 23-game home win streak from 1997-2001 and where they haven't lost since)? Or unbeaten TCU, whom the Broncos buried this past January in the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl? Or VaTech, currently the highest-ranked team in the ACC, who has already locked up a berth in its conference championship? Teams like that?

3. Yeah, but those wins over Oregon and TCU all happened last year, and have nothing to do with this year's team.Until Alabama fell last week at LSU, the Crimson Tide were poised to jump both Boise and TCU despite having one loss on their record. Why? Because they were the defending national champs. But wait, that happened last season right? See what I mean? Similar rationale has also been used to elevate perennial powers Ohio State and Oklahoma virtually overnight, and it may be used again soon to build Nebraska into the sexy, one-loss alternative. Like Boise coach Chris Peterson would stand a prayer against the likes of Tom Osborne or Bob Devaney. I mean come on!

4. Yeah, but since Boise State plays in a weak conference they'd better destroy the rest of their competition to be considered for the BCS Championship. Done, so far at least. In the five league games they've played this season, the average score is Boise 50, Western Athletic Conference 8. And one of those teams (Hawaii) had the second most votes of all teams not ranked in the polls at the time they played. Not to mention the nation's top passing offense. The Rainbows averaged 394 yards through the air entering the game but were held to 196 yards of total offense, nearly 300 yards less than their average. Boise State QB Kellen Moore, on the other hand, set a career mark with 507 passing yards while the rest of the offense rolled up 737 yards, shattering the school record. So should they beat their last three conference foes decisively as the haters have insisted (including #19 Nevada on the road), then strength of schedule is officially a non-factor, right? After all, you can't do more than beat everyone you play right? RIGHT?

5. Yeah, but Boise State has to play at a consistently high level for a number of years to be considered worthy of playing for the BCS Championship. This is what people said last season to support their lack of even considering the Broncos as national title contenders. Umm okay. While the hand-wringers keep inventing reasons, Boise keeps rolling. A win this Friday at home against Fresno State will give the winningest school of the past decade their fifth straight 10-win season.

6. Yeah, but until Boise State plays more quality teams they won't get my vote. Ironically, the people saying this are the coaches. Not only do they vote in the USA Today poll, a major contributor of the BCS formula. But they can schedule their teams to play any non-conference opponent they want... including Boise! So why won't they? Most likely because they know they'll lose. Truth be told, the Broncos just can't find schools willing to play them. It's gotten to the point that they're giving away home games for the chance to schedule and beat worthy opponents. Like Virginia Tech.

7. Yeah, but... Give them a minute, they'll come up with something.

Exactly. Should the Ducks or Tigers or Horned Frogs fall, expect the media to start beating the drums for a procession of one-loss schools like Nebraska, or Stanford, or Ohio State, or Wisconsin, or Oklahoma State, or someotherschoolI'mmissing, or one of the very teams who just lost. Doesn't matter, so long as it's not that dadgum college from Idaho with the funny blue field.

That's how the BCS works. It's not about putting the best two teams on the field. It's about crafting a matchup of two fat-and-happy teams from two of the six behemoth conferences so they can laugh, gorge themselves and split their Brinks-truck-sized BCS bankrolls. The only time "the system has worked" is when there have been exactly two unbeaten teams at the end of the regular season. Well their days are numbered. Soon we'll look back at the fraud that was college football's Bowl Championship Series and wonder what the heck we were smoking.

If you've read this blog before, you know how I feel about the concerted effort to drop Michigan out of the 2006 BCS Championship. Despite finishing the season ranked second in the BCS rankings, and despite their only threat (USC) being upset in their final game, the maize and blue were passed by Florida with the help of the Gators' intense lobbying efforts which persuaded the coaches to drop the idle Wolverines to third in the USA Today poll.

Even Auburn hasn't been immune, as they were snubbed by the BCS in 2004 despite the Tigers' flawless 11-0 record in that oh-so-tough SEC. It seems like one of the berths in the title game is automatically reserved for the winner of the SEC championship. Meaning Auburn could lose to Alabama (not entirely unlikely), then beat South Carolina to win the SEC, and even with a loss they're in.

The idea that Auburn and Oregon could each lose a regular-season game thereby setting up a third straight post-season meeting between unbeatens Boise State and TCU (see pic), this time for the BCS Championship, actually makes people angry. Does it make the coaches angry enough to vote the nation's only two undefeated teams third and fourth in the nation? Does it make those in the media angry enough to actively lobby the coaches to do this? Yes and yes, if history is any indication.

I'm pulling for Boise State because I like Coach Peterson and the juggernaught he's built up there in Idaho. I'm pulling for them because I still remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, where the Broncos tied yet another team they supposedly couldn't keep up with (Oklahoma) on a last-second hook-and-ladder touchdown and beat them with a statue of liberty play in overtime, after which their tailback heaved the football into the jubilant crowd before dropping to a knee for a marriage proposal (see pic). Most of all, I'm pulling for Boise because I feel they're the best team in the nation this year and they deserve a shot.

But even if I didn't, I'd pull for them for the sheer enjoyment of watching that old boy network known as the BCS implode. Get your popcorn, kids.