Sound familiar? Like it’s describing the current college football season? It should, but it isn’t.
This quote is not from an article on ESPN.com or Yahoo! Sports this week, although it easily could be. It is actually from an article published in Sports Illustrated 25 years ago, and it is describing Brigham Young University’s shocking 1984 national championship win.
Replace Brigham Young with Boise State, Texas Christian University, or even Utah, and that sentence could describe this year’s season.
Why does this matter? That 1984 BYU squad was the last team from outside a power conference to win the national title. BYU’s accomplishment is even more impressive considering that it finished number one in an era when bowls had specific tie-ins and there was no guarantee of a one-two matchup in a championship game. In 1984, the Rose Bowl always pitted the Big Ten champion against the Pac-10 champion, no matter what the Associated Press or coaches’ polls said.
By the end of the season, BYU was the only undefeated team left in Division I-A football and had risen to the top of the polls. But the bowl games had so little respect for BYU that it only received an invite to the Holiday Bowl, in which it was pitted against lowly Michigan, which had a 6-5 record that year. Both No. 2 Oklahoma and No. 3 Washington had declined playing in the Holiday Bowl to instead take the increased cash from the Orange Bowl. In essence, they decided to play chicken and stayed away from BYU.
BYU won the game 24-17 on Dec. 21, 1984, and claimed the national title two weeks later. It is still the only time that the national championship was decided prior to New Year’s Day.
Legendary Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, always the gracious loser, told the media that BYU was the “worst holding team in the country” and that they “should be outlawed”. As the 1985 Sports Illustrated article pointed out, BYU had found the loophole in the unfair system of college football — change to a pass-first offense.
Flash forward to this season. Chaos reigns again in college football. Three straight No. 1 teams have lost in three consecutive weeks. Nine weeks into the season, there are only seven undefeated teams left, three of which come from so-called mid-major conferences. Normally, mid-major undefeated teams would have no chance at getting into the Bowl Championship Series championship game, but, like BYU in 1984, Boise State has found the loophole in an unfair system.
This loophole, as Andy Staples of SI.com describes it, is to go undefeated for so many years that the pundits and pollsters have to respect you. Then go undefeated one more year (2009), defeat your bowl opponent (TCU), and bring back all but one of your starters on both ends of the field. Normally, the mid-major schools begin the season ranked poorly, or not at all, but this loophole allowed the Broncos to start the season ranked No. 3 in the human polls. In the next season (2010), schedule tough out-of-conference games, win those, and steamroll the rest of your conference and hope for the best.
And boy, have the last three weeks helped out Boise State immensely. All it needs now is for Auburn, Oregon, Michigan State and Missouri to lose. Auburn comes from the super-hyped Southeastern Conference, which has produced the last five national champions, and would certainly deserve a spot in the BCS championship if it goes undefeated. However, the Tigers still have a tough road game at Alabama on Nov. 26.
Oregon has a shakier case for title-game worthiness. Its offense has absolutely annihilated the competition this year, but apart from a 52-31 win over Stanford, its opposition has largely been subpar. The Ducks still have to win at University of Southern California this week if they want to prove that they are ready for the big time.
Michigan State and Missouri are the only other undefeated teams in the six BCS conferences, but both were unranked at the beginning of the year. While they are currently placed behind Boise State and TCU, at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively, they will almost certainly jump Boise State if they finish undefeated. That, however, is very uncertain, as both teams have tough road games, at Iowa and Nebraska, respectively.
The result of the past three weeks means that that the Broncos have the best chance of finishing the regular season in the top two since BYU in 1984. As in that Orwellian year, other coaches and pundits have directed a constant onslaught of putdowns about the pathetic conference schedule Boise State faces. But BSU has no choice about that schedule and has taken care of business. If the Broncos win out and no major conference team does, they deserve to be placed in the title game, no questions asked. It would set up undoubtedly the most exciting BCS championship game in history.
Four more losses — that’s all we need.
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