Zo Knows: Pitting TCU vs Boise was no coincidence

I understand that the college football BCS “lottery” system is what is to be blamed for the matchup between Boise State and TCU in the BCS Fiesta Bowl. But you will have to forgive me if I don’t believe the notion that this matchup was completely coincidental.

First, the BCS process is not completely immune from having some sort of non-major school bias. Just because there is an “order system” in which the BCS bowls are “independently” selecting which teams they would like to have in their bowl game does not mean that these BCS guys are immune from collusion. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say it. I think they did collude to have TCU play Boise State in the Fiesta bowl.

It makes perfect since that they would. After all, the Fiesta Bowl, played in Glendale, Arizona, is in a prime location for fans from Boise and Ft. Worth to travel to; thereby, giving the Fiesta Bowl the best opportunity to make money off a bowl game consisting of two non-major football programs.

Also, the Fiesta Bowl had first dibs in the selection process this year, so the fact that they chose a non-automatic qualifying school as their replacement for Texas doesn’t strike anyone as absolutely absurd?

And they went with a mid-major first?

This isn’t even one of those cases where you can say, “Follow the money.” Neither Boise State nor TCU would bring in more money than Iowa or Penn State would have. This is just one of those cases in which the people in charge wanted to defend their own, and by not allowing TCU or Boise State to topple one of football’s behemoths, that’s exactly what they accomplished.

“Why would they do that?” you ask. “What would believe one to believe that they are trying to avoid having a major upset?”

Because we can’t follow the money!

The very notion that this game isn’t about money, and that the Fiesta Bowl stands to host a team in TCU that couldn’t sell out all of its home games, is proof positive that the BCS system is against having a “mid-major” upset one of the big dogs.

And it makes perfect sense that they chose the Fiesta Bowl. Outside of the Fiesta Bowl’s aforementioned geographic advantage, the Fiesta Bowl is being played on a Monday when the ratings were for the game were probably sure to be the worst of all the BCS games, irregardless of what 2 teams it consisted of. Thus, putting Boise State and TCU in the game was essentially the BCS using a bad ratings night on a game people aren’t as interested in anyway.

So excuse me if I’m skeptical about the process here, but I can’t help. I can’t follow the money. The Fiesta Bowl is the perfect place to make the best use of this game. And we all know that the BCS is anti-mid-major in the first place, so why would I be surprised when all of these “coincidences” combine to make the perfect storm?

I’m not.

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