Considering that he died in 1950 in Hertfordshire, England, it’s rather surprising that George Bernard Shaw once commented about the 2010 college football season.
Yet it was Shaw who wrote, “Some look at things that are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
It is conceivable that Shaw was talking about something entirely different from football. But if you’re looking for a mantra to encapsulate the Boise State Broncos, you might as well start with, “Why not?”
Such as, “Why not have the Broncos in the national championship game? Why not consider them one of the two best teams? Why not go against conventional wisdom and recognize their body of work?”
If Boise State goes through the regular season undefeated, the Broncos absolutely should be ranked ahead of any one-loss team. There shouldn’t be an argument about this.
The critics, of course, will claim that Boise State’s schedule doesn’t warrant championship consideration. That the Broncos don’t face the weekly gauntlet of an SEC schedule or a Pac-10 schedule.
That playing in the Western Athletic Conference against the likes of New Mexico State, San Jose State, and Utah State isn’t becoming of a national contender.
To which Shaw once responded, “We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.” Although he might have been talking about something other than football.
The fact is that in the past five years, Boise State is 5-1 against teams from conferences that automatically qualify for the BCS. The Broncos have defeated Oklahoma and Virginia Tech and Oregon State and Oregon twice. They have defeated the Ducks in Eugene and Boise. They have beaten a Virginia Tech team that started the year ranked 10th in the country.
That’s not the same as playing those squads in back-to-back weeks, but why assume the Broncos would lose two or three times a year if they were in a major conference? Why assume something when there’s no evidence to support it?
Boise State has reached a level where teams from major conferences are loath to play the Broncos, realizing they have nothing to gain other than embarrassment.
Because of that, criticism of Boise State’s schedule is capricious and sanctimonious. Consider: Alabama’s non-conference schedule this year includes San Jose State, Duke, and Georgia State. Consider: Ohio State’s non-conference schedule includes Marshall, Ohio, and Eastern Michigan.
Those are the teams ahead of Boise State in the polls. In the end, if the Broncos go undefeated, they should be ranked ahead of a one-loss Ohio State or a one-loss Alabama or a one-loss Oregon or Florida or anybody else.
And if any of those teams remain unbeaten, their status of being in a major conference is not in itself a reason to rank them ahead of Boise State. They better have more on their résumé.
The season has a long, long way to go, and at this point we are assuming facts not in evidence — like Boise State going unbeaten. Which makes Saturday’s visit from Oregon State so crucial. If the Broncos survive that, it’s likely that Nevada will be the only test remaining on the schedule.
But in measuring the Broncos against the power conferences, it’s instructive to remember this: Boise State won 51-6 last week at Wyoming, one week after Texas beat the Cowboys 34-7 at home.
Suggesting that Boise State will deserve to be ranked ahead of the traditional powers might sound like anathema, bucking the time-honored college football tradition of honoring status rather than performance.
But as George Bernard Shaw once said, “All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
And we think he might have been talking about football on that one.
Greg Jayne is Sports editor of The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4531, or by e-mail at greg.jayne@columbian.com. To read his blog, go to columbian.com/weblogs/GregJayne
