Boise State's path to BCS might have to include blowouts

There's a lot to like about Boise State.

Its suddenly Heisman-buzz tailback earns money on the side by crocheting hats. Its native-son quarterback can throw it 80 yards. A potato, that is.

Jared Zabransky leads 7-0 Boise State with 11 touchdowns and just three picks. (Getty Images)

Its leader is the only undefeated first-year coach in the country, which kind of gets us closer to the core issue. It's easy to like Boise. It's hard to like Boise's chances.

If coach Chris Petersen doesn't end the season undefeated, his rookie year will be, on some level, a failure. Because at his level, teams have to finish undefeated to get into the BCS.

Boise State (7-0) is the latest non-automatic qualifier to make a run at BCS immortality. All but one (Utah, 2004) has failed.

Boise might also be the latest to compromise its values in order to chase the $13 million prize.

"Chris doesn't game plan where he has to score 60 points per game," Brent Guy said. "Unfortunately, the strength of schedule is working against him right now. I know that's what everybody is talking about."

That Guy's Utah State program is part of that schedule-strength problem is the point. Idaho, Fresno, San Jose State, Utah State and Nevada are Boise's final five opponents. None is rated higher than 70 in the Sagarin ratings. The same index ranks the WAC eighth among the 11 Division I-A conferences.

Push the other conversation aside. Deep down, Petersen has to know there is only one strategy to get to the BCS promised land. Nuke 'em. Napalm. Death from above. Petersen essentially has to bomb his WAC brethren back to the Stone Age to have a chance at that BCS bowl.

Impress the pollsters or die trying.

"We don't talk about it," said Petersen, who was elevated from offensive coordinator after Dan Hawkins left for Colorado. "Everybody else wants to talk about it. Then when we don't win by enough, everybody wants to ask questions."

Boise debuted at No. 15 in the first BCS standings Sunday. That's the highest a non-AQ (automatic qualifier) has ever placed in the initial standings. More liberal qualification standards this year means it has to get only to No. 12 to automatically qualify.

But the future doesn't look promising. At least in the BCS computers, which will take into account the relative weakness of the WAC.

The 177 human poll voters in the BCS have already spoken, ranking Boise 17th (coaches) and 18th (Harris). Only Rutgers is ranked lower among undefeated teams.

Yet optimism abounds.

"I think Boise State will easily beat that top 12 threshold," said WAC commissioner Karl Benson, whose job it is to say such things. "Right now a 12-0 Boise State, in my mind, you don't have to worry about it."

Peterson has made a seamless transition at Boise. Hawkins, and before him Dirk Koetter, nurtured the program to this point. The program is in its 11th season of I-A competition.

If anything, it is better than the program Hawkins left behind, which went 45-7 in the previous four seasons. It's not surprising that these Broncos are sixth in scoring offense, but they also play defense (No. 18 in scoring defense).

Linebacker Korey Hall was a CBS SportsLine.com Halfway All-American. That crocheting tailback, Ian Johnson, averages 143 yards per game and has 14 rushing touchdowns. Quarterback Jared Zabransky is rebounding from a shaky 2005.

What else can the Broncos do? They have beaten their seven opponents by an average of 25 points. Their signature wins are a four-touchdown home decision over Oregon State (3-3) and a 33-point victory at Utah (4-3).

That's part of the problem. There is a perception by some that Boise State should have skated to its 7-0 record. It probably won't face a ranked team all season.

The Broncos got a D-minus from a local columnist after scraping by New Mexico State by 12 on Sunday night. The Aggies' Chase Holbrook set a WAC record with 49 completions.

The program is stuck in a purgatory where it has started 7-0 for the second time in three years. The only commodity less abundant than quality wins is respect.

"I know they're talking about strength of schedule," said Fresno State's Pat Hill, who ranked Boise No. 9 this week on his coaches poll ballot. "It's got some legitimacy in some ways and it's unfair in others. They can only control what they can do."

Hill was in this almost exact position five years ago. The Bulldogs started 6-0, rose in the polls, then lost in midseason to Boise.

That game got mid-major buildup as Fresno started sniffing a BCS berth. This week's Boise game at Idaho is similar. Dennis Erickson has re-energized the Vandals. Both teams are 3-0 in the WAC.

The worst thing that could happen -- for the league and Boise -- would be if the Broncos were busted in Moscow.

Right now, there is a whole lot of hand-wringing. The Idaho Statesman killed a lot of trees over the weekend, publishing a 2,500-word BCS tutorial.

The New Mexico State victory came after the polls and BCS had been released. That means on Sunday, Boise will have two games plugged into the system.

Two games against teams with current combined records of 6-7.

"It would be great to have a WAC team in that thing," Guy said of the BCS. "But we're all planning on beating them."