With the accuracy of BCS rankings data so critical to so many millions of people, it goes without saying that the complex computations should be part of an open, accountable and verifiable system that can be checked by virtually anyone.

(How would we know the rankings are wrong? Left to BCS, we wouldn’t)

So, if there was ever a mistake made, a mistake that could actually cost an entire conference its BCS automatic qualifier status, it would be acknowledged and corrected instantly.

If only that system existed.

BCS and RPI guru Jerry Palm reports today that the latest BCS rankings were, in fact, inaccurate. And no one at the BCS - or ESPN- or the NCAA knew about it. Turns out that no one ever checks to see if the BCS data is wrong, except for informal inspections by Palm himself.

Mistakes happen. But this mistake, and how it has been subsequently handled by the offending parties, is unforgiveable.

Palm: Read more…

I was very dubious when the initial call was made at the end of regulation thanks to Nevada’s patented 1983 Southwest Conference Tony Franklin-brand uprights.

But after examining the closeup video in slow motion several times, it appears Boise State kicker Kyle Brotzman pushed the 26-yard field goal attempt to his right.
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Today Jay Christensen of TheWizOfOdds.com pointed me to a video of Boise State safety Jason Robinson blindsiding Louisiana Tech kicker Matt Nelson on a kickoff during the Broncos-Bulldogs game last week.

(WAC office calls hit “cheap” but provides no punishment)

After the Oct. 28 game, Rivals.com writer Jonathan Ford reported “Tech officials spoke with WAC Conference Commissioner Karl Benson and the WAC’s Supervisor of Officials” about the blind strike from behind. A week later, reportedly with no response from the conference office, Tech once again followed up with Benson.

While Benson has not issued a public statement on the matter, a current WAC head football coach informed me today that action regarding the incident has indeed taken place.

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In preparation for a visit to Boise State this Saturday, Oregon State head football coach Mike Riley Tweeted a photo of his team’s practice field at the Tommy Prothro Football Complex in Corvallis, Ore., being painted blue: “Getting the practice field ready for Boise State.”

George Schroeder of the EUGENE (OR) REGISTER-GUARD reports, “Oregon State’s temporarily blue practice field required 440 gallons of paint (a white coat, then blue).”

(Credit)

At $25 gallon, that’s an $11,000 paint job. UPDATE: Schroeder now reporting, “180 gallons, diluted to 440.“($4,500, plus labor.) The money for the paint and labor came, according to Schroeder, from an “anonymous donor.”

Boise State is well-known for its blue field, which was first installed at Broncos Stadium in 1986 and most recently replaced last summer.

Here’s some video of the blue practice field from Oregon State sports site BuildingtheDam.com: Read more…

On his weekly radio show on WFFN-FM in Tuscaloosa last night, Nick Saban said of Boise State competing for a national championship:

“It’s the full body of work. It’s not just that you can beat one team, but if you have to beat six or seven other teams and have to play with consistency to do it, I think that goes a long way in saying a lot about what kind of football team that you have. And that’s no disrespect that you have, because they may certainly be able to do the same thing if they were put in that circumstance.”

In an attempt to illustrate his point, Saban noted Alabama’s championship run last year. After the Crimson Tide defeated Virginia Tech in its 2009 opener, Saban said Alabama defeated, “six other teams (during the regular season) that were the caliber of Virginia Tech, or maybe better.”

Last season Virginia Tech went 10-3 and blew out Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. The Hokies beat Nebraska, routed Miami and crushed Boston College.

Here’s Bama’s 2009 schedule:

Sooo, where exactly are those six teams on Bama’s 2009 schedule that are the “caliber” of Virginia Tech? (We know Tennessee isn’t, as the Hokies dismantled the Vols in a bowl game.) Read more…

ESPN’s Joe Schad reports Friday that the Mountain West conference will add Boise State as a league member.

Boise State will be announced as the next member of the Mountain West Conference on Friday, a source with direct knowledge of the pending move told ESPN’s Joe Schad.

MWC commissioner Craig Thompson hinted at an expansion announcement on Thursday amid news of Colorado’s move from the Big 12 to the Pac-10.

Some may read into this that the MWC made the move after recognizing that other schools, like perhaps Kansas, would not be available as expansion candidates. But I’m not so sure a school like Kansas ever was a candidate to join the Mountain West anyway. Read more…

This past Monday, Boise State became the fifth college sports program (and the first outside the BCS) to get their team’s logo on an airplane; they joined the Pac-10 members in Oregon and Washington as partners with Horizon Air.

(Waaaaait a minute. A twin prop? You couldn’t even get your logo on a real jet? Boise, Boise, Boise…)

Unfortunately, not everybody who’s going to fly in that plane is a Boise State fan. That ordinarily wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but when we’re in the middle of a season, fans of the Broncos’ opponents may take a bit of offense. ADs of the Broncos opponents, then, are really not going to stand for this crap. And thus we find Idaho AD Rob Spear, taking the most principled stand in history.

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Okay, we’re thinking of a football conference over by the West Coast, where one team enjoys a seemingly perpetual stranglehold on the conference, routinely running the table or slipping once to an opponent who had no shot at the title. Are we talking about the Pac-10 and USC in the Pete Carroll era (minus this year, of course)… or the WAC and Boise State in the same time span?

(”Give me liberty or a decent schedule or whatever!”)

The difference between the two teams, however, is that USC can get pretty much anyone, anywhere, at any time. Whether it’s money or influence or just the opportunity to have USC on your schedule, whatever. They’re never hurting for opponents. Boise State, on the other hand, can’t fill their 2011 schedule with a decent opponent, and it’s been this way for years.

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Say, remember how LeGarrette Blount crapped the bed harder than you’d ever seen anyone in college football ever crap a bed in your life? In the span of one game on awful blue turf (and one very eventful postgame), Blount went from a strong contender for first-team all-Pac-10, high draft choice and darkhorse Heisman candidate to a man whose season would end with 6 more suspensions than rushing yards - and he only got suspended once. Shortly thereafter, Chip Kelly announced that Blount’s suspension was to last the season, and that was that on the senior’s collegiate career.

(”Welcome to Paintown. Allow me to introduce you to Mayor McHellfist.”)

But that wasn’t, in fact, that. It never is, really. Despite being a suspended senior with no ostensible hope of playing another meaningful down for Oregon, Blount was never kicked off the team. He began the apology parade shortly thereafter, and even met with the original face-wrecker of sports, Kermit Washington. And lo and behold, just as we mused this afternoon in light of his published apology to the OREGON DAILY EMERALD, Kelly’s about to take the next step toward bringing Blount back in a few weeks. You could just knock us over with a feather, really.

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Ah, the beginning of October. It’s a magical time, when a good 20 college football teams are still dreaming of hoisting the glass football. That includes Boise State, oddly enough; the perennial mid-major Cinderella is counting its ifs for reaching the title game, according to the IDAHO STATESMAN, and none of them are entirely unreasonable.

(”Give me freedom or… wait, the Statue of Liberty doesn’t say that. Great, now I just look ridiculous.”)

But wait. It seems paradoxical, but is getting a non-BCS team to the BCS Championship Game really in the best interest of the non-BCS conferences? It really depends on your definition of the word “fair.”

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