Boise could revel in BCS glory ... if given chance by pollsters

Gangs have never been much of a problem in Boise -- until now.

The nation's No. 6 team is at the end of a dark alley with the bad guys closing in. The gangstas are armed with opinions and keyboards and are about do something no else has been able to lately -- take out the Broncos.

It's the first week of October and the Boise State-in-the-national-title-game discussion already is dying. It was all the rage last week when the Broncos became the highest-ranked regular-season non-automatic qualifier of the BCS era (No. 5).

It became evident that the program not only was headed for its second BCS bowl, but had a shot at playing for the national championship. That is until the AP and coaches passed out the brass knuckles this week.

Boise State beat UC Davis by 18 -- to remain one of the nation's 13 unbeaten teams -- and was dropped from fifth to sixth in both polls, passed by one-loss Virginia Tech. The odds of hanging on to that ranking are about the same as the Gosselin kids growing up well adjusted.

"History," Collegebcs.com's Jerry Palm said of the Broncos, "is not on their side. Boise's as close to peaked as there is right now. I'm not saying it's right."

Tragically, it might be reality. Another one-loss team, USC (4-1), is directly below Boise in the polls and rising fast.

In the coaches poll, the difference is 10 points -- 1,133-1,123. Palm says that a one-loss Big 12 and/or SEC champion could pass Boise by the end of the season. Tough stuff for a program that has an Oklahoma scalp on its wall and could finish undefeated in the regular season for the third time in four years.

Subjectivity is college football's mistress. Opinions count, matter and destroy in this wacky sport of ours. In other words, it means more to play football for 14 decades than it does to play it for 14 years. That's Boise's age as a Division I-A program.

One of the CBSSports.com national columnists is busy pumping up Cincinnati. Some are calling for TCU. But they're missing the mark. Because of its Big East affiliation, Cincinnati is one of the "haves," able to compete for a BCS bowl each year. TCU plays in the conference with the biggest mouth, the Mountain West.

Boise is so humble it needs a publicist. Coach Chris Petersen won't take the microphone when it comes to hyping his team. Only Oklahoma has won more games this decade.

Boise State will have to bring the hammer to the rest of its opponents to even hope to sniff a title. (US Presswire)

Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike has become a Heisman candidate. You wouldn't recognize Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore if he won American Idol. TCU hasn't won a conference title since 2005 and hasn't played a bowl bigger than the Liberty since 2002. That includes last year's Poinsettia Bowl, where Froggie types will remind you their team dealt Boise its only loss.

Voters are busy telling Boise it is among the elite now, but won't be in the future. That is hypocrisy. The Broncos were good enough to be ranked fifth last week but not good enough to get as high as second, the spot they would have to reach in the BCS standings to play for the national championship?

At least two teams above them will lose. (No. 1 Florida and No. 3 Alabama play No. 4 LSU. Florida and Alabama could meet in the SEC title game.) If Boise keeps winning and doesn't move up, that's a double standard.

"I assume they'll get to No. 3 at some point in time," WAC commissioner and Boise alumnus Karl Benson said. "If No. 1 or No. 2 get beat, it's the voters. I don't think it's the computers that are going to be their barrier."

Not when one coach last week voted Boise 18th according to USA Today.

The Broncos were good enough to beat the Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. That should count for something in the polls. If your argument is "That was so three years ago," you're right. Kind of.

History is part of the subjectivity that allows an established program like Wisconsin to get the benefit of the doubt. The Badgers are ranked this week despite beating only one team with a winning record. Heck, Ohio State got to the national championship a couple of years ago without beating a team that was ranked (at kickoff) in the top 20.

Paraphrasing Seinfeld, players come and go. We're all rooting for laundry. A power conference team's gear is more recognizable.

Boise has a clearer path to an undefeated season than any team. It doesn't play a currently ranked team the rest of the way. Its WAC schedule features teams ranked between 53rd and 161st in the Sagarin Ratings. Boise is also No. 6 in Sagarin -- one of the six BCS computer indexes. The next best WAC team is No. 53 Fresno State. There are 39 BCS conference teams ahead of the Bulldogs.

Its only hope is to create a wide blast zone, rip every remaining opponent 50-13 and hope for the best.

It is a program stuck in limbo. Its 2008 season (12-1) helped get it a preseason ranking of No. 14 in AP, but now it is hitting a glass ceiling.

The more it wins, the less likely power programs will want to play Boise in the future. It is probably too good for the WAC, but there really is no other place for Boise to play. There have been rumblings about the Mountain West, but adding the Broncos would do nothing but make TCU, Utah and BYU more vulnerable. When everyone is 10-2, no one goes to a BCS bowl.

"The one thing I'm anxious to see," Benson said, "is has Boise State established itself as a credible, legitimate year-in, year-out football power, and will they get the same treatment as one of the teams from one of the automatic conferences?"

Benson is getting his answer week by painful week.