If you are an AD at a BCS school here is your mission. Load up your nonconference schedule with W's, then hope for an undefeated or one loss conference schedule for your BCS shot.
As a result, no one can really determine who the better teams are in the country without making a subjective call on who the best conferences are.
For instance, the conventional wisdom this year is that the Big Twelve and the SEC are the best conferences this year. Why? Both conferences members played no one. But how does the Big Eleven or the PAC - 10 lay claim? They don't play anyone out of conference either.
Now look at a team like Boise State. Critics say "play someone". How? Do you think USC or Penn State are going to schedule a team like Boise State, who could upset their national championship run, when they can set up a patsy like San Diego State?
Here's a column in the WSJ about the woeful nonconference scheduling....
We now know who's champion of the Big 12, purported to be the best conference in the country. But have we any idea how that conference compares to the other majors? In nonconference play, the entire Big 12 played three teams currently ranked in the Associated Press top 25: Virginia Tech, who defeated Nebraska in Lincoln, and Texas Christian and Cincinnati, both of which Oklahoma routed in Norman. Cincinnati went on to win the Big East, so one can draw some conclusions about that conference -- not that anyone is taking the Big East seriously this season anyway.
But how does this establish the Big 12's supposed superiority over the other top leagues? Regardless of how many points the Sooners are scoring, why shouldn't one assume until proven otherwise that Oklahoma will get outclassed come January, as it has in four of its past five bowl games?
This season, the Big 12's reputation (and, therefore, its teams' rankings) was built not only on the offensive might of Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech, but also on the spotless records that those teams and Missouri and Oklahoma State built in September -- records that, save for the aforementioned TCU and Cincinnati games, were built largely on nothing. Meanwhile, the precious few nonconference showdowns that did occur nationally have had an outsized impact on the rankings all season.
Consider: Why has Alabama been ranked ahead of Penn State all season? Granted, the reasoning was obvious for a few weeks last month, when Alabama was still unbeaten and Penn State had just suffered that one-point loss at Iowa. But Penn State's victories over Ohio State and Oregon State trump any two of Alabama's. Penn State's strength of schedule is practically identical to the Crimson Tide's. Penn State's defense is statistically comparable; its offense is superior.
There's one reason why Penn State has been at a reputational deficit all season: Ohio State-Southern California. USC's September blowout of the Buckeyes colored popular opinion of the Big Ten (or, rather, reconfirmed old suspicions) – as it should have. The only unfair aspect of this is that the Buckeyes (and, by extension, the Big Ten) were one of the few that stuck its nonconference neck out this season. Had there been just a couple of major interconference games involving the Big 12 -- Missouri-Illinois was as big as those got -- that league's reputation and its teams' rankings might've been different, too.
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