I have historically cheered against Boise State, as they come from a faraway sparsely-populated state not known for its tradition of football, ever since my first game in the UGA band to start the 2005 season. Dan Hawkins himself provided an adequate summary of the game (at halftime).

But things have changed a bit since then, Boise State has gone about collecting some notable W's from pretty much anyone else who schedules them. Simultaneously, the BCS system is always finding fun new ways to look broken, like its automatic exclusion of Utah (the pollsters admitted to having not watched the Utes play) or how it can't even bother to feign consternation in selecting 2 teams from 5 who finished the season unbeaten.

This year, Boise State has to chance to greatly upset many apple carts.

Well, maybe I won't be cheering exactly, but following Boise State - watching their games, and kinda hoping they win. As an east-coast lifer, my geographical bias leaves me dismissive of the Broncos' chances in Maryland versus Virginia Tech just a couple weeks ahead - and wishing I knew a booky, after seeing the Hokies are 2 point underdogs. But, should they win this road game against the ACC fave, you have to like their chances from there on out.

They won a game against TCU back in January, who has since lost some players to a more appropriate league for their skills. Regardless on the outcome with Virginia Tech, I'd take Boise State again in this rematch of last season's Separate-But-Equal Bowl. They've started the season in almost everyone's top 10, so if they can just stay up there, most of the teams in their vicinity will take a loss (eg. Florida v. Alabama, someone's gotta lose) and clear a path for the #2 spot.

The presidents of the 6 auto-qualify BCS conferences, who take turns supervising the BCS, would do what exactly? See a team not represented by any of their conferences (and no major base of TV ratings) play for the national championship? Trump up charges for the NCAA to disqualify their season? Or just go to DEFCON 1, rewrite the BCS formula to force an Alabama vs Ohio State championship game, and then start frantically dumping documents into bonfires as their building is sieged?

Actually, nowadays you'd probably just yank the hard drives and take them to get an MRI... Anyway, my conjecture is all getting to this point: If the BCS has no recourse but to put an unbeaten Boise State at #2, will enough movey-shakey people raise hell about not getting their money's worth? Surely, someone must've seen the revenue projections for a nationally televised playoff scenario, and wouldn't this outcome be just the sort of impetus to bring on the change?