Much has been said and written about the strength of the BCS conferences versus the rest of the NCAA pack.  Among BCS supporters it is widely felt that the smaller non-BCS conferences are unable to carry the proverbial jock of the larger and more elite conferences.  This notion whether true or not is generally further compounded by the BCS conference schools invariably selecting little known Division I schools or even Division II opponents for their out of conference battles.  As an example, this year SEC powerhouse Florida played games against Charleston Southern, Troy, & Florida International.  

Not to pick on the state of Florida, but ‘The U’ – otherwise known as Miami, played games against Florida A&M and Central Florida in their own backyard.  Why in the world is the ‘U’ playing a mid-season game against – with all due-respect to Florida A&M – a Division II team that would probably be the equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals at home in Harlem. 

It behooves the powers at be to schedule more meaningful out of conference games between the major conferences and mid-major conferences.  While battle between the superpowers such as a USC/Ohio State matchup may be compelling for many different reasons, many would argue that a TCU/Florida or a Nebraska/Cincinnati tussle would be just as compelling.  And if travel is a concern, how about few more Houston/Texas, Cincinnati/Ohio, Buffalo/Syracuse type matchups which would at the very least drum up meaningful local interest, but no doubt national interest as those outside of state hope for David to slay the Goliath. 

And by the way there are some pretty good players coming out of those lesser known conferences.  All you have to do is take a look the group going to Hawaii a few weeks from now.  Of the 83 selected players going to the Pro-Bowl (DeSean Jackson was selected at 2 different positions), 23 came out of non-BCS conferences.  The conference with the greatest representation was the ACC, which was largely fuelled by Miami’s great run a few years back.  Here’s out it breaks down for the rest of the conferences: 

SEC (11)

Big 10 (fittingly with 10)

PAC 10 (9)

Big East (9)

Big 12 (8). 

Division II schools (8)

Conference USA (5)

MAC (3)

WAC (2)

Mountain West (2)

Sun Belt (1) 

With all those Pro-Bowl selections coming out of Division II schools it seems clear that some of the talent scouts somewhere should be looking for different work. 

But perhaps, most intriguing is the quality of players that have emerged from the conferences.  To put it into perspective, try and determine which conferences the following 5 players are from – Chris Johnson, Brandon Marshall, Brett Favre, DeAngelo Williams, Asante Samuel.  Not the SEC, PAC 10 or Big 12.  They all hail from Conference USA, and it might be said that no conference has as much star power as C-USA with the exception perhaps of the ACC. 

So if Boise State or TCU had been given the chance to play Texas or Alabama for the NCAA Championship, maybe they would have been trounced, or maybe we would have seen a reprise of Boise State’s improbable victory over Oklahoma in the not so distant past.  Isn’t it time for a playoff?  The folks in Boise certainly have an argument, don’t they?