In attempts to get their school's football teams playoff berths and bigger bowl games, coaches, fans and representatives of mega-money schools knock Boise State's schedule, but when it comes time to add schools to their conferences, they let in worse teams and avoid Boise State (see Table of each major college team's record over the last 17 years at bottom of post.) For example, Boise State is #1 over the last 17 years, while Tulane (one of the 12 schools making the cut for Big 12 expansion, ranks #111 out of 119 schools on that list.
Before you say, "It's about academics (ignoring Boise State's huge uptick in quality and growth), TV markets (ignoring Boise State's huge national TV ratings) and market size (ignoring Boise's reputation as the #1 destination in the country), this has nothing to do with that. They can use whatever criteria they want and add who they choose. This argument is solely about football, because when it comes time to choose playoff teams, academics, TV markets and market size have nothing whatsoever to do with which football team is the best.
No, when it comes time to choose the best football teams each year, one doesn't hear analysts say, "Well, Alabama only averaged 2.43 GPA, while Kent State averaged 3.15, so Kent State definitely deserves a spot", or "Philadelphia is a much bigger city than Columbus, so Temple definitely will get the playoff berth over Ohio State."
The nation's media and sports fans now have evidence that conference membership has nothing to do with quality of football. After all, the Big 12 will let in worse football teams than Boise State, and the strength of their conference, from a football perspective, will go down if they expand from the list of 12 schools that have been published.
Thus, here is the argument the next time an undefeated Boise State threatens their mighty schools by being in the playoff conversation: "We don't want Boise State's football team to play in our conference, and we don't want to schedule non-conference games with Boise State. But our football team is better than Boise State and should be picked instead of them. Their football team plays in a weaker conference."
http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin/records/calc-wp.pl?start=1999&end=2015&rpct=30&min=5&se=on&by=Win+Pct
Before you say, "It's about academics (ignoring Boise State's huge uptick in quality and growth), TV markets (ignoring Boise State's huge national TV ratings) and market size (ignoring Boise's reputation as the #1 destination in the country), this has nothing to do with that. They can use whatever criteria they want and add who they choose. This argument is solely about football, because when it comes time to choose playoff teams, academics, TV markets and market size have nothing whatsoever to do with which football team is the best.
No, when it comes time to choose the best football teams each year, one doesn't hear analysts say, "Well, Alabama only averaged 2.43 GPA, while Kent State averaged 3.15, so Kent State definitely deserves a spot", or "Philadelphia is a much bigger city than Columbus, so Temple definitely will get the playoff berth over Ohio State."
The nation's media and sports fans now have evidence that conference membership has nothing to do with quality of football. After all, the Big 12 will let in worse football teams than Boise State, and the strength of their conference, from a football perspective, will go down if they expand from the list of 12 schools that have been published.
Thus, here is the argument the next time an undefeated Boise State threatens their mighty schools by being in the playoff conversation: "We don't want Boise State's football team to play in our conference, and we don't want to schedule non-conference games with Boise State. But our football team is better than Boise State and should be picked instead of them. Their football team plays in a weaker conference."
http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin/records/calc-wp.pl?start=1999&end=2015&rpct=30&min=5&se=on&by=Win+Pct
