If BYU was undefeated this year would they play in the MNC game?
 

This post got me thinking. I think it is crazy to believe that any non-BcS team would ever get a shot at the MNC game. Sorry the system is designed to cheap the non-BcS out and even if you have no undefeated BcS teams, it is still going to be two BcS teams.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=3234137

Only if every other BCS team had two losses, and BYU had a strong non-conf.

The writers in the AP poll might give the cougars a ranking that would help, but I'm not sure the coaches ever would.

Most years they wouldn't with this schedule and going undefeated, but this year they probably would be in the top three in the computers (my model says #2). I think it's reasonable BYU would have been voted up there as well, with all the losses. They might have needed to win more convincingly, though.

I may be an idealist, but I think if you are good enough, you will rise to the top with this BCS formula.

The BCS will never allow a team that is not in their little cartel to play for their championship.

Completely agree.

The BCS would cease to exist if they ever allowed that to happen.

I'm not sure. I think the BCS wants to protect it's Cartel as Il Pad points out, but at the same time in a season with so much upheaval like this year, I think that the BCS would concede and allow it. Then they could point to this season as saying the BCS system works and is fair all the while praying that this aberration of a season never occurs again and that the BCS team with 1 loss takes it to BYU in the MNC so they could also say in the future that they don't belong.

They would have been ranked if they had beaten UCLA. Being ranked that early and then not losing throughout the year would have put them up there. Consider that they would have been ranked before Kansas was. The result is that Kansas, without a great schedule, wouldn't have been able to jump them. That puts them at #1 a few weeks ago in the polls.

The BCS conspiracy theorists drive me a little batty.

BCS schools don't need to protect anything. It's always been theirs and it always will be theirs. The reason Michigan gets more $, TV ratings, national championships, important postseason games, etc. than Tulsa is not due to some conspiracy.

Just like the movie Dogma!

I think you could ask the same question about the Utes (and probably get the same answer).

The only reason things *might* be different (assuming everything else had played out the way it did) is that the OSU & UCLA wins early would've probably put the Utes in the top 25 going into a national TV game with Louisville...and a 8-2 BYU team at the end of the season.

Fun to speculate about, that's for sure.

I think an undefeated Utah would have been in for sure. They would have had three highly publicized wins over BCS teams and then a win against a ranked BYU in a rivalry game. That would put you in the MNC game.

I tried this in the Colley Rankings hypothetical thing. I made the UCLA and Tulsa games wins and it had us at #1. That doesn't necessarily mean the BCS rankings would work out that way as that's only one of the computer polls but I thought that was interesting.

I think an undefeated BYU would be in this year over 1 loss Mizzou/WVU calibre teams. If you were talking a 1-loss LSU, USC, Florida, etc. probably not.

This year is similar to 1984 in that respect.

you all are smoking dope.

I would have thought the same if I hadn't done the hypothetical thing with the Colley poll.

It dulls the pain.

BYU would be 10 places higher than Hawaii? I don't think so. In a year with a down UCLA, an ignored Tulsa, a down TCU, a Utah team that lost to UNLV...

SOS matters. While BYU's may not be stellar, it's a hell of a lot better than Hawaii's. I'm too lazy to look it up but it seems like BYU's was in th 60's or so. Hawaii was like 120 or some insane number like that.

Also, I think my 1984 comparison is valid. Is BYU's scheule this year weaker than it was in 1984?

I think you are neglecting the effect of the previous season's record and the early buzz. BYU would have hit the top 25 after the UCLA game. Hitting it that early with the turnover the top 25 has had would make all the difference.

I agree

What was the situation at the top of the BCS picture in 04 with Utah?

If BYU goes undefeated and plays in the MNC game, I'll be Jerry Creekster's uncle.

Nobody is saying that as a "normal" circustance. In most years, an undefeated BYU would not come close to the MNC game. This has been an unusual year. What we're saying is that an undefeated BYU this year might have gotten a shot. And the Colley computer poll agrees.

If they upgraded the schedule a little, they'd be in it most years with an undefeated record. The year Utah went undefeated, there were three undefeated BCS schools. On average there is probably one.

Agree on the schedule. But my point is that it would take a unique set of circumstances for a non-BCS to get in to the title game. You clearly need to go undefeated, but you also need the top BCS schools to beat each other up like they have this year.

That's why the "Hawaii model" is misleading. If you had 2 or 3 undefeated BCS teams, and most others were 1 loss ... Hawaii might bot even be top 15 this year, much less 12.

That would be sweet on two levels...

One, my school would win a national championship.

Two, you would be part of my family.

I agree with this. The BCS teams are the bigger names. The problem is that the BCS is driven by tv money and not to find a true champion. If there were 10+ million residents along the Wasatch Front, Utah and BYU would be in a BCS conference.

Three undefeated BCS teams.

And the geniuses that make the call or feed data into the computers picked the least deserving of those 3 to be the team to play USC.

Norman, OK
Lincoln, NE
South Bend, IN


all have metro populations similar to or smaller than SLC, yet house BCS schools and National Champions.

The issue isn't population. It is national appeal.

South Bend is 1 hour drive from Chicago. 3 hours from Detroit and 2 hours from Indianapolis. That's over 10 million people.

There are exceptions, of course.

Why were the Big East and the ACC in the BCS to begin with? It certainly wasn't because of national appeal.

FMCoug, I looked at some examples of schools...

Does anyone here believe that if Troy went undefeated they would play for the MNC?

The Colley poll has them ranked 2nd in the nation if they had won the last 3 games they lost.

We all know that there is no way in hell Troy from the Sun Belt plays for the MNC.

Big East: Miami
ACC: FSU

Pretty simple. National appeal.

You're a smart guy, but I have a difficult time believing that you wouldn't accept that the number of tv sets wasn't the determining factor in creating the BCS.

I agree that TV sets play a factor, but from a national perspective, not really a local one.

The flagship teams in all 6 BCS conferences (plus ND) are all nationally loved and followed schools (probably in large part because they have all won NCs at one point or another...USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Miami, FSU). Very few of those schools reside in large media markets. As a matter of fact, with the exception of SC, ALL of those schools reside in small media markets.

The non-BCS schools were not invited to the party because they have no real national presence. BYU has about the strongest claim against that, but nowhere near to the extent that BYU fans like to make it seem. Church members all over the country dont follow BYU because it is a Church school. And even if they did, how many million people are LDS in the country? There are probably more SC fans in the state of CA than there are LDS church members in the United States.

The biggest benefactors of the BCS are not really the traditional powerhouses. those schools were huge names before the BCS. It is all the pretender BCS coattailers that receive BCS money while not really being a high caliber football program....UNC, Duke, Vandy, Maryland, Miss St, Ole Miss, Arizona, Washington State, etc...

I think ultimately we are saying the same thing. My focus is just on national presence while you seem to be emphasizing local media market.

Fair enough. I am looking at it from a local perspective - as in why the BCS is exclusionary and you are looking at why the BCS came to be.

My two main problems with the BCS is that it has declared that it's championship game is the legitimate championship game and that it does not give all teams a chance to play for it's championship.

It really bothers me that the Miles Brand is such a pussy about it all. He has the power to do something about it, but is to skeered of the SEC.

I am not a fan of the BCS, but if you remove fan emotion, here are two truths:

1. There are more BCS schools than non BCS schools in D1.
2. In the history of college football championships, non BCS schools dont really win national championships anyway, so what does it really matter that they are not in the BCS now?

The irony would be that if BYU and the U went to the Pac 10, one of us would wind up playing the Vegas bowl nearly every year, anyway.

Point number 2 is very telling. I am one of those who believe that it is because BYU won a mythical national championship that we have the BCS today. I just don't like that Division I football is the only sport that doesn't have a playoff to find a true champion.

And you speak the truth about Utah and BYU in the PAC 10 ending up in the Vegas Bowl. More likely BYU, as what's-her-name is still upset that she scheduled her game on a Christmas Day in the early afternoon and Utah didn't have many fans in the stands. She's the idiot for it happening, but won't accept responsibility. But I digress.

I wish we had a playoff, too. It would be great. But I feel like the reality is that, for the most part, those traditional schools are better, anyway. If you look at March Madness, there are some examples of an NC State or Villanova. But for the most part, the better, traditional schools win championships. And even NC State wasnt that much of a fluke. they had won the ACC tourney that year.

In recent years, unbeaten teams like Marshall, Tulane, Boise State, Utah....they were not the best team in the country, so they really were not robbed of anything.

They were robbed of the chance to see how good they really were. That is the problem. If the BCS was so confident that USC would have beat Utah in '04 or Florida would have beat BSU last year, why not let them play and prove it?

And the "best team in the country" is subjective anyway, especially when it is decided by a computer that is being fed data and told what to do.