King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Boise State as national champ? Get a grip, fellow Broncomaniacs. It's Central Washington.
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Jan. 3, 2007 | Let's get one thing straight, fellow newly minted members of Boise State nation: Boise State is not your national champion. Not even co-champion.
Central Washington is your national champion. More on that in a minute.
Even in a perfect, wonderful world in which there's a college football championship system that isn't rigged for the big schools and corrupt to the very essence of its every molecule, Boise State wouldn't have earned a national championship with its thrilling overtime upset of Oklahoma Monday night in the Fiesta Bowl.
It would have earned another game, maybe a semifinal, and most likely against Ohio State, since Boise State seems like the kind of club that would be seeded eighth in an eight-team tournament. And that seems to be what our heroes are asking for, any grass-roots movement to try to persuade voters in the non-BCS Associated Press poll to rocket Boise State to No. 1 and give it a share of the public-opinion championship notwithstanding.
"We went 13-0 and beat everyone on our schedule," Broncos quarterback Jared Zabransky said in a USA Today story hyperbolically headlined "Boise State Wants Share of National Title." He went on, "We deserve a chance at the national title."
OK, Boise State choir, fellow Broncomaniacs -- and by the way wait till the first time Boise State shows up on TV next season and you get a look at that blue artificial turf -- I won't bother preaching about how obvious it is that Division 1-A college football should have a tournament if you promise to stick with Zabransky's sentiment and not the one expressed in that headline.
Because let's not get ahead of ourselves. Boise State didn't win a share of the national championship Monday night. The Broncos won a football game against a very good team. They deserve a shot at another good team, then maybe another if they win that one.
Which would be highly unlikely.
Boise State played a great game, don't get me wrong. But let's say the Broncos are going to line up against Ohio State or Florida or USC next week and I want to bet $100 on Boise State's opponent, straight up, no spread. You take that bet? Didn't think so. How many points you want? Would seven do it?