Hawaii in the BCS!
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by Audino237
If you have read any of my posts about college football in the past, you know that I am a big proponent of a playoff and the importance of strength of schedule being lessened. Basically, I think that small teams from BCS conferences and legitimate teams from non-BCS conferences deserve their shot at a title. I think that Boise State should have been in the title game in place of eventual champion Florida last year. My pet team this year is Colt Brennan and his high-octane Hawai'i Warriors. They currently stand at 17th in the AP Poll and 18th in the all-important BCS standings. They are one of 5 remaining undefeated teams. The others, Ohio State, Boston College, Arizona State and Kansas are all from major conferences.Though Brennan hasn't been as dominating this year in terms of TD-Ints, he is still more then effective and has led his team to a 7-0 record (though he missed one game). But for some reason, no one even mentions the fact that if they are one of 2 remaining undefeated teams at year's end (or even the only one) that they should play for the title. The reason is that they play 2 Division 1-AA teams this year, to no fault of their own.
After reading Matt Hayes' article in the Sporting News, it really strengthened my ideas about June Jones' team getting a shot.
Here is this year's schedule.
| 09/02 | | W 63-6 | | 09/08 | | W 45-44 | | 09/15 | | W 49-14 | | 09/23 | | W 66-10 | | 09/29 | | W 48-20 | | 10/07 | | W 52-37 | | 10/12 | | W 42-35 | | 10/28 | | 12:05 AM | | 11/10 | | 11:05 PM | | 11/16 | | 11:05 PM | | 11/23 | | 9:05 PM | | 12/01 | | TBD |
You see that the long BCS school on the list is the last game against a fledgling Washington team. Boise State is down this year, but they are still a Top 30 team. Everyone who follows college football knows that after a year of negotiation, Michigan State bought out this year's game against hawaii for $250,000, which is alot of money for a team that "doesn't even put soap in the showers" according to Brennan.
In the last 5 years, Hawaii has beaten Michigan State, Alabama, Purdue, and Arizona State. The big teams have so much more at stake then Hawaii, so they are extremely hesitant to play them. The NCAA even gives them an exempt week after playing at Hawaii. The athletic department has finally stopped pleading big teams to play them so they can get national exposure and the respect that they deserve. They have offered Pac-10 schools $750,000 to come play there. It costs about $350,000 for a team to play Hawaii, so they could walk away with a $400,000 payoff FOR A ROAD GAME. It shouldn't be so expensive for a team to play a legitimate schedule, and this is the reward to Hawaii and Boise State for being competitive teams. A BCS school playing Hawaii would also get good national exposure. Anyone who enjoys the exciting offenses would tune in to watch a USC, Cal or Oregon play the Warriors.
It's nearly impossible for a non-BCS school, let alone one with 2 D1-AA teams on its schedule, to move up in the rankings. It'd be one thing if, say, Ohio State and Boston College finished undefeated. I'm not an idiot; the teams who finish undefeated in the harder conferences should play for the title. However, if Hawaii is the lone unbeaten or one of 2, they should get the oppurtunity.
Next year, the schedule for Hawaii seems to get much tougher. In an effort to play a good schedule, they reached an agreement to open their season in 2008 in Gainesville. Of course, the Gators did not agree to play a follow-up game in Honolulu in coming seasons. In fact, next year's is shaping up to be one of the harder non-conference schedules in the land. In addition to traveling to Florida the first week, they travel to Oregon State 2 weeks later. Washington State travels to Honolulu in November, and the season closes out with upstart program Cincinatti. People may also take the WAC lightly. Boise State looks to be the Gonzaga of college football, a program that is here to stay. San Jose State puts up points with the best of them, as evidenced by taking Hawaii down to the wire this year. Fresno State has been known to give BCS teams trouble, and this year alone they took Texas A&M until the end, falling 47-45. Nevada and New Mexico State are experiencing down years, but are traditionally good.
Teams from the WAC and Mountain West (BYU, Air Force, Utah, TCU, San Diego State, UNLV, and Colorado State) are teams that have talent and potential to be good in the future. I don't have any ideas about how the NCAA can attempt to give Hawai'i a fair chance at scheduling quality opponents, but something must be done so the program does not have to continue shelling out thousands of dollars to play a mid-level BCS team. A playoff of course would solve problems. Unfortunately, a playoff doesn't seem to be on the horizon. Another solution would be to have Hawaii and some other program (Fresno State, Utah) move into the Pac-10, but that would take years to negotiate and won't happen.
Hopefully, if they remain undefeated and are not beat out by 2 unbeaten BCS schools, the Warriors will get their shot to win a national title.
