NCAA 2009

[PDH]

How can any national championship possibly be more tainted than any other, given the way in which they are assigned?

Read up about BYU's championship.  Grumbler can help too

[Eddie Teach]

TCU, Utah, and BYU may be as good programs as WVU, Pitt and Cincinnati, but the bottom half of the conference falls far short.

[stjaba]

Arent' Boston College and Pitt Big East?

Yup.  Are those big names?

Syracuse is also historically a big time school in the Big East, even though they've been extremely the past few years. Pitt, Syracuse, and West Virginia probably have the most history, so they're definitely a "name school" too. Rutgers has the most history out of any Big East school(played in the first ever football game, IIRC) but they've been horrendous most of their history. Even Louisville has some decent history. On a side note,  I don't see why the Big 10 doesn't go after Louisville. It's actually geographically close to the Big 10, at least compared to Syracuse or Rutgers.

[MadImmortalMan]

Cincinnati is two hours closer, plus not in Kentucky. I hope they'd pick them over Louisville if they have to offer to a BEast school. And Pitt over either.

[katmai]

How can any national championship possibly be more tainted than any other, given the way in which they are assigned?

Read up about BYU's championship.  Grumbler can help too

That was UDub's year!

[PDH]

TCU, Utah, and BYU may be as good programs as WVU, Pitt and Cincinnati, but the bottom half of the conference falls far short.

TCU, Utah, and BYU are as good as the top 3 in any conference, I would wager. The bottom is like the bottom of any conference. However, even a horrendous Wyoming beat Tennessee at Tenn last year, for example - so to say "Our worst teams are better than yours" is not really true...

Bad teams or teams on a down year are bad...whatever the conference.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Pitt, Syracuse are much more 'storied' programs than TCU, Utah or  YU.  Certainly over the last decade neither team has been as good in wins and losses as the top 3 in the MWC.

WVU compares favorably to any MWC team over the same time period. They have 2 BCS bowl wins and have mostly attended major bowls in non BCS years.  They also won one of their BCS bowls against the SEC champions in what was essentially a home game for Georgia. That equals a ton mpre street cred than beating up on a Big XII team or beating somw god awful Pitt team that made it to the BCS on a fluke.

Keep in mind I'm talking about perceptions only. Which unfortu ately is the only thing that matters in college footall. Well, other than the almighty dollar.

[sbr]

Nevada is screwed. Bet against them.

Great call.  I didn't change my pick but i dropped Nevada from the tops in confidence points, to the bottom based on your hunch.

[Neil]

How can any national championship possibly be more tainted than any other, given the way in which they are assigned?

Read up about BYU's championship.  Grumbler can help too

That was UDub's year!

They ducked BYU.  They deserved to fail.

[katmai]

How can any national championship possibly be more tainted than any other, given the way in which they are assigned?

Read up about BYU's championship.  Grumbler can help too

That was UDub's year!

They ducked BYU.  They deserved to fail.

No see young'un this was back when Bowls were assigned not by some BCS. So they went to Orange Bowl to face Oklahoma and BYU as WAC champ was forced to go to Holiday Bowl.

[dps]

How can any national championship possibly be more tainted than any other, given the way in which they are assigned?

Read up about BYU's championship.  Grumbler can help too

That was UDub's year!

They ducked BYU.  They deserved to fail.

No see young'un this was back when Bowls were assigned not by some BCS. So they went to Orange Bowl to face Oklahoma and BYU as WAC champ was forced to go to Holiday Bowl.

BYU was contractually bound to go to the Holiday Bowl AFAIK but I don't think that UW was contractually bound to go to the Orange Bowl--in fact I'm pretty sure that they weren't. 

[Ed Anger]

I enjoyed SMU back in bowls.

[grumbler]

BYU was contractually bound to go to the Holiday Bowl AFAIK but I don't think that UW was contractually bound to go to the Orange Bowl--in fact I'm pretty sure that they weren't.

  Uh, the Orange Bowl was by far the toughest bowl UW could have taken.  They played the #2 team in the nation!   It is crazymantalk to think that the Pac Ten would have allowed them to screw the conference out of a coupla million dollars by taking a Holiday Bowl bid.  UW could not have played a better matchup, and they just got screwed by the fact that the voters ignored the fact that UW had itself already beaten Michigan much more soundly in Ann Arbor.

There is no question that UW was a better team that year.

[PDH]

Told ya the Grognard would remember!

[katmai]

BYU was contractually bound to go to the Holiday Bowl AFAIK but I don't think that UW was contractually bound to go to the Orange Bowl--in fact I'm pretty sure that they weren't.

You are correct they weren't bound by contract, but grumbler summarized the rest best.