Boise State is making some noise, wants the NCG
From the Playoff PAC:
Last week, the sporting world received word that the Western Athletic Conference (“WAC”) has retained a public relations firm to help its soon-to-be conference champion, the Boise State Broncos, secure a BCS berth. Some responded by scolding the WAC. Folks can criticize the WAC all they want. It’s their right. But no one can credibly accuse the WAC of spending its conference funds frivolously.
Boise State has taken care of business on the field. They’ve had close games with unranked opponents, but so have all the top contenders. Their schedule might be weaker-than-average, but few “Big Six” conference teams are willing to play them. They remain unblemished. Yet under the BCS that isn’t good enough.
The college football “powers that be” have created a championship that’s a popularity contest masquerading as a competitively earned honor. We all know this. The BCS values perception over performance. No one should be surprised that a team is using non-competitive means to move forward in a system that uses non-competitive methods, like balloting, to pick winners and losers.
This is certainly not the first time we’ve seen this strategy employed. Other teams have brought in hired guns to play the off-the-field game that’s grown increasingly important in the BCS scheme. The University of Memphis hired former Big East Commissioner Michael Tranghese earlier this year to clear its path toward “Big Six” conference membership. And in 2004, Texas Coach Mack Brown infamously mobilized the Longhorns’ PR machine to vault his team ahead of California in the regular season’s final week. You see, under the BCS, it’s no longer good enough to have a quality quarterback. You need a top-flight media consultant too.
The WAC has good reason to think that a well-orchestrated PR push might just make a difference for the Broncos. But is there any surer sign that something’s wrong with the BCS than an undefeated team feeling compelled to hire a PR firm just to have an opportunity to prove its mettle on the field?
Whenever an elected official pressures the BCS to respond to the public’s calls for reform, BCS apologists complain that politics should stay out of football. The irony is that, because of the BCS’s unholy stew of ballots and computer rankings, college football has never been more infused with politics. After all, what’s more political than waging a campaign to get your team “elected” to a BCS bowl berth?
It doesn’t have to be this way. The status quo can and should be fixed. College football can reduce politics’ influence on the game by instituting a playoff system. A playoff wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be progress. Teams would line up across from each other. They’d play. Some would lose. One would win. Done.
Boise State’s PR ploy is a symptom of a sick system. That symptom will persist until college football stops settling its championship in newsrooms and boardrooms, and starts settling it on the playing field.
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