Filed under: Alabama, Boise State, Florida, University of Miami, New Mexico State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, San Diego State

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1. Now that Boise State has cleared one of two real hurdles to a possible national championship run, Internet message boards and talk radio stations have been a battle ground between two sides: one that believes the Broncos have no business in the BCS Championship regardless of record, and one that believes they deserve to go if they go undefeated and no more than one other team does.

Not surprisingly, Alabama’s Nick Saban — head coach of the defending champs and a member of the mighty SEC — falls into the former camp.

On his radio show Thursday night, Saban pointed out the Crimson Tide beat Virginia Tech last season, but also at least six other teams that were as good or better than the Hokies.

“It’s the full body of work,” he said, according to Birmingham News. “It’s not just that you can beat one team, but if you have to beat six or seven other teams and have to play with consistency to do it, I think that goes a long way in saying a lot about what kind of football team that you have. And that’s no disrespect that you have, because they may certainly be able to do the same thing if they were put in that circumstance.”

And therein lies the issue. While it’s become a big boys vs. little guys war of words, the real culprit here is the BCS. If there was an eight- or 16-team playoff, we wouldn’t even be bothering with this debate. I think even SEC chest-thumpers would admit Boise is probably among the 16 best teams in America and would deserve a chance in the tournament, should it win the next 11 games this season.

Instead, we either run the risk of having one or two undeserving teams as the only two with a shot at the championship come January. Whether one of those teams comes from the SEC, Big Ten, WAC or Sun Belt makes no difference. In this system, there’s no way of really knowing the two best teams are meeting in the title bout.

The BCS will tell you the regular season is the tournament. But it’s really not. It can’t be if teams can run the table and still not have a shot.

Whatever side you’re on, don’t hate the team (Boise State) or conference (any of the automatic qualifiers). Hate the system.

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