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It was not a pretty night for non-BCS teams across the country last night, particularly those going up against BCS conference schools. It could have been worse- nobody lost to a FCS school, although some tried. A quick rundown of last night’s action follows. Lots of good stuff lined up for today- Friday night football preview and weekend previews for four conferences, at the very least. Happy College Colors Day. Flags up! Today is the day. All the talk of recruiting, GPA, realignment, coaching changes, Senate hearings, lawsuits, transfers, arrests and everything else goes out the window. At least until Tuesday because there’s no games Tuesday. Football is finally ready to kick off. Here on the Fringe, we attempt to preview any given weeknight game as best we can, and we will have our Weeknight Football preview a little later today. But for now, the first of our weekly features including the BCS Buster Watch and my non-BCS Top 25. So here we go. BCS Buster WatchCurrently on the watch: Everybody. All 54 teams are presently undefeated. So instead, here are 10 teams besides Boise State, TCU, and Utah that could make a run at the dream season, or at least stay undefeated long enough to garner a little attention. These teams are picked because they could (not will) make it to about 4-0 and do it with a worthwhile resume. In no particular order, except for alphabetical by the order their conference pages are sitting on my desk: The preseason AP poll dropped on Saturday, and the non-BCS universe was well represented, especially in the also-receiving votes world. And while the AP poll has nothing to do with the BCS, I have no doubt that the people who fill polls out for the coaches keep an eye on the AP as well, so as not to look as foolish. Here are the non-BCS teams who made the rankings: 3. Boise State, 1336 points (155 points behind #1 Alabama, one first place vote) 6. TCU, 1160 points it is a long way down from here- nobody else cracked the official top 25, but for a lot of these programs just making the bottom of the sheet is noteworthy, so we’re noting it here. Officially, nothing happened yesterday. But what we did get is some new reaction and some juicy new rumors, some of which sound plausible but others sound absurd. The WAC has said they’re totally going to stick together and rebuild their conference. Commish says they want to find other 1-A (aka FBS, which I’m slowly being worn down [...] Yesterday was the most insane day of college football not involving actual college football in a very long time. While the two moves this summer were important, they were neither surprising nor terribly traumatic for any conference involved. The events of yesterday will have a much more profound impact on the non-BCS leagues we know and love. First, a recap in case you’ve missed anything, then a bit of analysis. The Opening SalvoWord leaked that BYU was considering going independent in football, primarily to rake in TV money on their own, and the rest of their sports would move back to the WAC. This led to a twitter-wide consensus that the MWC was doomed, and I was planning a post this morning on how to split the remaining MWC teams between C-USA and the WAC. However, it’s important to note that BYU has not announced anything as of 7:30 Eastern Time today. The Mountain West RespondsActually, if you ask them, it’s just a coincidence, but after what appear to be a whirlwind 36 hours of negotiations, the Mountain West invited Fresno State and Nevada to join the league. Both accepted in simultaneous press conferences at 9:30 ET last night. MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson held a press teleconference at 10:15, where he hit on a couple of points- he does not know what BYUs intentions are right now, but they participated in, and voted on, the discussions about and with Fresno & Nevada. Further, he kept hammering that the move was made in order to make the league better and tried really hard to convince everybody that it had nothing to do with BYUs rumblings. Last, he was asked several times about more expansion, which he sounded like would be a substantial possibility. The Arrangement Right NowOnce the moves are finalized, probably in 2011 but possibly not until 2012: MWC:
WAC:
What Will Happen NextIf you’re one who hates hypothetical blog posts, it’s time to disembark. More season previews in a couple hours. By the end of the day, we’ll be half done with the season previews. We have some good ones today- through random selection, we’ve only had one team come up between 12 and 22 (NIU and I’m pretty sure they’ll be higher in my last pre-season list), and that’s where things can be really exciting at [...] We are 3 weeks away from opening night. There are 18 games on Thursday, September 2, and guess what: 13 of them (and 6 out of the 7 on national TV) feature non-BCS teams. Stick around and you’ll know who’s who and what to expect. First off, if you don’t have the College Football TV Schedule on [...] Well, it looked like Western Kentucky might finally win their first game as a full-fledged 1-A program, but it was not to be. With a chance to send their embattled coach on his way with a W, the Hilltoppers led the Red Wolves 17-3 at halftime, but Arkansas State came back and won the thing at [...] So that’s it then. November is gone, and so is the bulk of the college football regular season. There is only one team in America who’s bowl eligibility has not been finalized one way or another (Hawaii), so now our attention will turn to championship games and bowl placements. We might start hearing some bowl selections [...] For most of America’s 1-A college football teams, the regular season has come to a close. The conferences with no championship game have a few games here and there over the next few weeks, and four non-BCS teams have appointments with championship games next week. Here are some of the highlights from yesterday’s action: Troy and TCU [...] |
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