Last year, Boise State and TCU matched up in the Fiesta Bowl, but this year, only Boise State can lay a claim to being the best team in college football.

MITCH BLATT

UPDATE: As I mentioned in the first version of this post: “However, Boise State is staking their season, to some degree, on how well Virginia Tech finishes the season.”

Well, now Virginia Tech lost to James Madison, so Boise State’s national title hopes might already be falling apart. If there’s a 1-loss team from the SEC or Pac-10, they would deserve the nod over Boise State, at the rate the team got a quality win over is going.

Boise State beat Virginia Tech by 3 last night, but their season isn’t over just yet. They still have previously ranked #24 Oregon State on September 25, then after that, their season might be over. Does a team whose schedule includes Wyoming, New Mexico State, Toledo, San Jose State, Louisiana Tech and Idaho deserve to play in a national championship?

I guess if they’ve gone undefeated two years in a row–with 20 starters returning–and there aren’t two more deserving undefeated teams from BCS conferences, then Boise State has earned it. We know they usually step up to the challenge of who they face. However, they are staking their season, to some degree, on how well Virginia Tech finishes the season.

As for TCU, which also finished the 2009 regular season undefeated, they just finished this season in the first week with a 30-21 win over Oregon State. Now if they can just hold on against Tennessee Tech, Colorado State, Air Force and UNLV, they will finish undefeated again, but they won’t have earned any consideration as our nation’s best team.

Sorry, TCU, but how can anyone know how good a team is if it never plays a team against which we can measure it?

Even just playing one top tier team isn’t a measure of strength when teams in BCS conferences play higher quality teams each week and have to keep it up all season. In the WAC and the Mountain West, you don’t have to play Georgia, Tennessee, LSU, and Florida all in the same season.

If Boise State is a long-term good football team, they should join the Pac-10. This year, they announced they were joining the Mountain West, but the Mountain West still has such featherweights as UNLV, Wyoming, San Diego State, New Mexico, and Colorado State.  TCU and Utah are tough, but BYU is leaving the MWC for Independence.  O and Air Force.

Photo: Getty

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