Sid, The Utah/Bama matchup could become a problem for the BCS if Alabama doesn't win. Worse yet, if Utah wins convincingly, they will be able to make a very strong case that they are being cheated out of an NC. Then there is the matter of unbeaten Boise State meeting twice beaten TCU (who has lost to Utah and Oklahoma only) in a 'nowhere' bowl while others play in higher paying marquis bowls.. This whole thing sucks.
I too do not make fun of Utah/Boise St./Hawaii/Ball State/Rutgers/Louisville, but I do not think that they take the beatings week in and week out that the schools in the PAC10, Big 10, SEC, Big 12 do. Utah may be one of the best teams in the country, and they may beat Alabama but they just haven't had the chance to show it against an array of opponents that the other contenders have.
Utah beat big10 Michigan and Pac10 Oregon State TCU beat Pac10 Stanford and lost to Big12 Oklahoma BYU obliterated UCLA 59-0 and beat pac10 Washington UNLV beat big12 Iowa State and pac10 Arizona State New Mexico beat Pac10 Arizona Wyoming beat SEC Tennessee I'd argue that the Mountain West teams have had a rougher go against one another than they have the major conference foes this year.
Corey, Out of all of those wins only Oregon State and Arizona had winning records this year. I admire Utah for scheduling Oregon State and Michigan and it is not their fault that UM had such a down year, but my point is that after playing UM they didn't have to go play Ohio State, then the next week MSU, then the next week PSU, then the next week Purdue, then the next week Ill, then the next week ...well you get my point.
KP, And my point is those teams beat up on the same mid-level to lower level teams that fill up the 'power conferences'. They played damn good teams in BYU and TCU in their conference. I'd say that the 'grind' of the power conference just doesn't hold up in comparison to the MWC this year. People in the Big10 don't play Ohio State and Penn State every week. In fact, they may not even play them at all in a given year. (Iowa, for example, didn't play Ohio State or Michigan this year) If it was just one game, I'd agree totally. However, when you're talking about the conference top to bottom going out and playing teams from the power conferences while beating them (quite often on the road), it is hard to say that they don't play as good of a schedule week to week. There's 2 places in football you can find conferences with 3 10+ win teams. The Mountain West and the Big12 South.