That was one of the best gut-check finishes in college football history. The hook and ladder player was even more daring considering a first down was only another couple of yards, and yet they pitched backwards. Remarkable. I will never forget this game as long as I live (or at least until the next all-time great game in a few seasons.) Actually, I'm looking forward to reading the experts because that really might have been one of the greatest college football games ever played.
Hermiston has a lot to be proud of the way their QB fought through the big interception and came up a winner.

Boise State proved it belongs in amongst all of the best teams and should be considered i the rankings up high.

Here is my honest opinion...If Ohio State wins I belive #1 should be Ohio Staate and #2 BOISE STATE...

Should Ohio State lose, and I won't believe it, then #1 should be Florida #2 Ohio State and #3 BOISE STATE.

SO, either way, BOISE STATE should be ranked #2 or #3...

BUT, even more importantly, I do believe there shoudl be a tournament play-off so the teams can determine the NATIONAL CHAMPION on the field...then BOISE STATE could perhaps have met Ohio State and may the best team win the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!!

PS I am born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and I am a die-hard OSU BUCKEYE fan...BUT fair is fair and BOISE STATE deserves big time recongition for being PERFECT 13-0 and we need aTOURNAMENT to determine the NATIONAL CHAMPION!!!

Division 1-AA manages a playoff system (as do all the other divisions below that).

Money is the REAL reason Division 1-A won't do it.

How can a Cinderella, underdog team ever rise to the top if there isn't a playoff.

Talk about taking the fun out of the game.

Polls are nice, but you actually have to play the games to find out who would have won.

Everybody knows that!

I think this maybe the first year that I switch FROM a playoff supporter to against. (Which shocks even me ... given my compettive spirit and love for the free market.)

But have you ever witnessed SO MANY unbelievable close bowl games? The bowls have been a real treat this year (minus the Oregon blow out) ....

Walk on kicker puts Boston College over Navy at the last second.

Texas Tech with the largest come back in bowl history.

Oregon State wins on a late two point conversion.

Nevada loses by one to Miami.

Texas by 2.

Oklahoma State wins on a kick with 8.9 secs on the clock.

Georgia comes back from 18 at Half to Virginia Tech.

And NOTHING can top the Boise State win. I still can't believe that I witnessed that. I hope they are invited to a BCS game every year because they put on a show!

Anyways ... if we're going to use the 1-AA ia a model. Have you noticed the lack of truly competitive games? Brackets may make a great game in the title game but I am not sure that I would trade this bowl season for a tourney.

Having said that ... I am ready for college hoops and March Madness ... and yes ... I am FULLY aware of the hypocracy in what I just said.

aarrrghhh... I live on the east coast, so immediately after Boise State threw that intercpetion, I went to bed. I was 1am and I was too tired to stay up... and evidently I missed one of the greatest comebacks ever. arrrggh, Oh well, it's off to ESPN to find a recap.

Kari - well said, and I completely agree. More on my blog as well: nextblitz blog

Boise State proved it belongs in amongst all of the best teams and should be considered i the rankings up high.

PS I am born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and I am a die-hard OSU BUCKEYE fan...BUT fair is fair and BOISE STATE deserves big time recongition for being PERFECT 13-0 and we need aTOURNAMENT to determine the NATIONAL CHAMPION!!!

Please don't forget about USC. They had no problems dismantling a one loss Michigan team who came oh so close to taking Ohio State down. USC deserves the #3 spot, behind Ohio and Florida...Boise ranked fourth seems fair.

WE NEED A PLAYOFF!

Just do away with the whole damn thing and go back to the way it used to be. Yes, there's more money in a playoff season, fans and coaches want a national championship, etc, but shouldn't it just be about the game?

Question: What if one of these young men, playing at this heightened level of competition in an extended season, gets hit wrong and never walks again? What if a player actually gets killed? Sure those things can happen in a regular season, but the more you stretch it out and increase the level of competition to quasi-professional levels, you naturally increase the odds somebody will sooner or later, pay a very high price. That risk is one thing in the professional game where players take that risk for extraordinary financial compensation, have insurance policies against career ending injury, and are trained full-time to be as physically strong as possible, but I don't think it belongs in college sports.

Ok, here's an attempt at defending the current system.

1) 1 bowl game gives teams the freedom to play game. A playoff game is usually full of blunders and mistakes caused by jitters and nervousness.

2) If this had been a quarterfinal or semifinal, do you think Boise State would have risked it all and go for 2 in overtime?

Hi Folks,

When I saw the headline for this post I had the sudden hope that the business of college athletics might be up for review.......no such luck.

I know that there is far too much money and power involved for colleges to wean themselves from the exploitation and disposal of young athletes. When coaches and AD's make more money than the chancellor and president, when "academic centers" are built and staffed for the sole use of athletes, when sky boxes and luxury suites are the drivers for new stadiums it becomes crystal clear that we who value academia have lost the battle.

If U of Gargantua and Gargantuan State U make a ton of money then let them continue to provide the circus for the alumni and the bettors. We could then drop intercollegiate athletics at the regional college level saving the taxpayers money and lowering the insidious "student fees".

Thanks

Let's say this. Everyone seems to forget a few years ago when a Utah team led by Urban Meyer and Alex Smith absolutely demolished a Pitt team that won the Big East in the Fiesta Bowl. Now I'm not saying Pitt had any place in that bowl but Utah was the first non-BCS school to crack the BCS system. They ended up ranked #4 in the country. Boise State was also undefeated that year and didn't even get a nose for the BCS. I am so sick of this 6 conference bias they have. Oregon got screwed a few years back and I'm thoroughly convinced that Oregon State could have made a huge run in a playoff system the year they won the Fiesta bowl. I'm sure a playoff system will happen one day but the sooner the better. Imagine if USC had been killed by Michigan and Ohio State lost to Florida. Could you in good conscience vote for Florida as #1 even though they lost to a lower ranked opponent? You'd have another split national championship. Let the kids play it out. If the President's "cared" about the kids educations there wouldn't be a basketball tournament that lasts over a month.

BCS system is indeed flawed, but I don't think we would gain by using only the regular system record to determine the playoff teams....that would just cause the usual suspects with the most money to lose by changing from the current situation to adjust their strength of schedule way downward to insure that they have favorable win/loss numbers. As it stands now it behooves the Boise States and similar schools to "schedule up", although Oklahoma and similar schools might feel they have more to lose and refuse to do that in the future.

Instead of 12 teams and a continuing bias for "top" conferences and the (debatable) advantage of a first round bye, why not a 16 team playoff with all 11 conference champions and 5 best of the rest teams? Also instead of 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15... 8 vs 9 seeding how about 1 vs 9, 2 vs 10, ... 8 vs 16?

The argument of not having a national title because "There are simply too many good teams that never play one another to claim that any one is the best in the country. This championship mentality simply perpetuates the "rich get richer" problem we are all decrying and the small schools will just never get the exposure they need to recruit consistently superior players." that Russell talks about is bunk.

Boise State has gone 101-12 since moving to Division I in football. Think about Marshall they went undefeated when they moved into D-I and got no bids to big bowls. Championship mentalitiy has nothing to do with it. Basketball in the NCAA has some parity. Gonzaga consistently is good, George Mason made it to the Final 4. If you make every conference eligible for the BCS (Or championship round) then every school is on an even recruiting field. Sure Florida will always get great players but who cares, half their teams leave early for the NFL...a school like Utah or BSU could sneak up on them and crush a giant.

Boise St. National Champs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kari's sample of a playoff system is a start. It should, though, only be a playoff that includes conference champions--period. That way the mid-majors could also have a shot. The remainder of the good teams can play in the myriad of bowls that already exist (some, clearly, would have to go away-- considering how many there are--that'd be a bonus.)

Get rid of the (mostly)meaningless non-conference games (maybe allow one to start the season). More often than not they're a waste of time (Oregon vs PSU, anyone?) and the schedule would free up nicely for a playoff sysem.

The schedule creep in college football has been ridiculous. Every year the powers that be say that a playoff would add too many games and then they go and add another to the regular season schedule. At this rate, five years from now college football will have a pro-like 16 game schedule, anyway.

Some GREAT points made on this thread, but let me shift the gear just a bit. On a wild hair without much thought given to this yet, why not make the schedules more random? Division 1-A is D1A. In other words, if you're big enough to be in D1A, then ANY D1A team should be able to stand muster against another D1A team.

With fairness as the foundation, why not have teams play everyone in their division, but then have a computer randomly create the remaining schedules? I'd love to see Pitt playing Utah. Or Miami playing Wyoming. This might help stop the elitism. 1A is 1A. Random selections would help create fairness.

Like I said, I've not giving this much thought yet, so I'll throw it out there and see what you all think.

Anyways ... if we're going to use the 1-AA as a model. Have you noticed the lack of truly competitive games?

I know that Montana lost by two points to Massachusetts in the semifinals. A game that wasn't decided until the last play of the game. Sounds like a good match-up to me.

If you're going to run a league (Division 1-A) with a championship, you've got to have consistent schedules. That means all teams play the same number of games and everybody's season ends on the same weekend. And do away with "conference" championship games. That's what the regular season is supposed to decide.

The quest to find the best and weed out the rest is what competition is all about. That's why they have scoreboards. And it will ALWAYS be cause for speculation in college football. The only way to end the speculation is to actually play the damn game(s).

This isn't ice skating. We don't need judges to pick winners. There's a scoreboard. Use it.

Moreover, the idea that a playoff to determine the national champion would stifle upsets or spectacular comebacks flies in the face of history and simple common sense.

John Canzano disagrees with you, Kari. And I have to say, he makes a fairly compelling argument.

Do away with the damn thing. College footbal is just a welfare program to keep the well to do entertained. It has nothing to do with education.

Canzano's piece is interesting. But he fails to address the root issue other than to assert that Ohio State and Florida are the most deserving to play for the national championship. He might as well have asserted that Portland State and Stanford are the most deserving.

The truth is college football ought to be abolished. Coaches and schools are getting rich exploiting players for little or no pay. They work more than fulltime jobs as football players and most of them fail to even get the education they are promised in return. They aren't even allowed to market themselves. Only a very small handful go on to play "professional" football. Many of the players that don't still end up with permanent injuries that they need to live with for the rest of their lives.

The coaches, on the other hand, are free to market themselves and their players. Collecting money from companies like Nike for dressing their players in the companies shoes. The coaches end up millionaires if they are good at conning the right young men into playing football for them.

College football is big business. It competes with the NFL for the same market. The kids who create the product on the field ought to be getting a decent share of the take instead of the adults who exploit them getting rich.

Yeah right anonymous...college football should be abolished.

College football and mens college basketball typically make enough revenue for the school to pay for all their other sports teams and still contribute money to their general fund so when you live in a state like Oregon that doesn't give their colleges enough money they can make up for that by having Autzen stadium or Reser stadium packed to the gills with paying customers. If we followed the logic of getting rid of football then you would have to get rid of all sports that don't pay for themselves. So basically you'd have a mens basketball team, about 3 womens basketball programs in the country, some mens baseball teams and no more womens sports.

Of course college football is a business. The colleges do pay their players...I didn't realize a free college education wasn't worth what it once was.

The colleges do pay their players...I didn't realize a free college education wasn't worth what it once was.

There is nothing "free" about something that requires you to work 40-60 hours per week year round at your job as an "amateur" football player, in addition to trying to be a student. Given those demands, Its not surprising most major college football programs graduate less than half their players.

Of course college football is a business.

A business that gets away with operating as a monopoly and pays their talent less than minimum wage while the guys in charge make millions.

if we followed the logic of getting rid of football then you would have to get rid of all sports that don't pay for themselves.

The same way you have to get rid of the physics department if it doesn't pay for itself? These are supposed to be educational institutions.

As a former college athlete, lettering six times in two sports, here's a tip for "anonymous":

Sports, particularly competitive sports, provide a lifetime of educational lessons.

Of all the 'lessons' I learned in the classroom and on the athletic field during college, competing as an athlete gave me far more long-lasting, valuable lessons than any lectures or bookwork done in the classroom.

I'm not 'dissing' formal learning methods. I've also taught school for 20 years.
Simply stated, there's more than one way to get an education.

here's a tip for "anonymous":

Sports, particularly competitive sports, provide a lifetime of educational lessons.

No doubt. But college football does not exist to teach those lessons, it exists to make the adults who control the program rich.

Simply stated, there's more than one way to get an education.

Yes there is. But education has little to do with the reason college football coaches become millionaires. Its because they win games and put fans in the seats of stadiums. Whether the kids learn something in the process is beside the point.

Anonymous-

You obviously just don't get it and you aren't going to get it. I'm going to try one more time though...

Mike Belotti puts butts in the seats at Autzen stadium because Oregon is a mildly successful football program. Phil Knight likes football and track. He donates millions to the football program and track program as well as to the university itself. Last I heard the library was even named after him. Oregon is an underfunded university. Without the millions of dollars the football program makes things like your precious physics department would have their funding cut even more than it is now. If you don't understand that you're a dolt.

Paying a good coach who can have success at a school like Oregon is worth it. Nobody is going to put in the 100 hours a week and constant time away from his family to coach a major college for 60,000 a year. Of course Oregon is an educational institution but there is more to an education that reading books and listening to lectures.

Without the millions of dollars the football program makes things like your precious physics department would have their funding cut even more than it is now. If you don't understand that you're a dolt.

There isn't one dime from the football program that goes to support the physics department or any other academic program.

Nobody is going to put in the 100 hours a week and constant time away from his family to coach a major college for 60,000 a year.

Unlike the football players who do it in exchange for a scholarship most of them don't find the time to take advantage of, plus cafeteria food and a dorm room? What would Mike Bellotti do that would pay him $60,000 if he weren't a football coach?

Mike Belotti puts butts in the seats at Autzen stadium

I doubt a single fan goes to the game to see Mike Belloti. The players put fans in the seats. Bellotti knows how to get the players. But his success at that depends on college football's monopolistic practices. If you let colleges bid on the open market for players, a lot more money would go to players and a lot less to the people who run the program.

Major college football is a modern sweatshop exploiting young workers for the entertainment of its customers. But even "progressive" fans aren't willing to admit it.

Wow...far out...groovy...now, can anyone actually justify the existence of intercollegiate sports on any rational basis?

Torrid...Good budget find...the University of Florida has one too and they made around 14 million off their athletic programs. I was just using Oregon as an example. I would prefer to see a larger budget made up of total revenues that account for television revenue, bowl revenue, Pac-10 revenue and so on. I have made the mistake of saying athletic program instead of football program. I used Oregon as an example because its close...They probably do lose money on their total athletic program. Maybe, maybe not.

anonymous-Since you like hiding behind no name do this for me...when you think of Alabama football who do you think of? My guess would be Bear Bryant. Oklahoma football...Bob Stoops. It's not rocket science. Head athletic coaches are the face of their universities and they present the university to the general public. They are consistently there year in and year out with a rotating cast of athletes. I'd be willing to bet you can't tell me who the President of the University of Texas is without looking it up but you probably could tell me their head football coach is Mac Brown. Who is the President of Duke? Tell me who coaches Duke's basketball team?

College sports are not sweatshop labor. You are so P.C. you've out P.C.ed even the most P.C. person I know. Don't even try to compare college football to a sweatshop. Collegiate athletes receive free apparel, food, housing and a college education. Nobody makes them play football. Some of them can afford college without a scholarship I suppose. While they play the sport they are required to maintain a GPA in good standing with NCAA regulations, they certainly exercise more than I do, they get to play a game they love with a leader they respect coaching them...man collegiate athletics must be awful. It's sort of like sewing jeans for 13 hours a day at $1.32 an hour.

n you think of Alabama football who do you think of?

When you think of the University of Alabama what do you think of? Football. So lets stop pretending that these are non-profit educational programs. Let them pay their talent a market wage and compete in the marketplace against other sports entertainment.

Nobody makes them play football.

No one makes people work in sweatshops either. But if someone wants to play college football they have to play by the rules the monopoly has set. And god forbid they try to make any real money out of the deal. Those opportunities are reserved for the people who run the programs.

Collegiate athletes receive free apparel, food, housing ...

There is nothing free about anything college football players receive. They have to work for every bit of it. And if they suffer a permanent, debilitating injury they are just out of luck. At least the sweat shop worker gets workers compensation if they get hurt.

... and a college education.

I think you would find that in most major college football programs a majority of the players don't graduate. They are too busy working at their jobs as football players.

the University of Florida has one too and they made around 14 million off their athletic programs

The University of Florida's programs are run by the University of Florida Athletic Association. No money goes directly to the University. It appears the Association "donates" money to the school from time to time, their web page says that totals $19 million since 1992. But it does not appear that they pay for their athlete's scholarships. Its not clear what the University's other contributions to the athletic program are.

I am sure there are some athletic programs that provide a net income to the school. But that hardly justifies making millionaires out of the people who run the program while not paying the talent that people come to see.

Just to add to the University of Florida situation. The Athletic Association got 2.4 million dollars last year from student fees. Far from making money for the school, they are part of the costs paid by every student.

I think you would find that in most major college football programs a majority of the players don't graduate. They are too busy working at their jobs as football players.

The idea that players don't graduate because of their football commitments is just plain ignorant and delusional -- not to mention an insult to all the people who worked one, two or three jobs to pay their way through school.

The poor student athlete. So exploited. Give me a break. If that's exploitation, sign me up!