I don’t know if there’s another team that’s been more thoroughly or more consistently screwed by the BCS than mine (Kansas State), which is why I loathe the BCS.
1998: finished 3rd in the BCS. Bowl: Alamo. So egregious that there is a “Kansas State rule” in the BCS to ensure it never happens again.
1999: finished 6th in the BCS. Bowl: Holiday
2000: finished 9th in the BCS. Bowl: Cotton
2002: finished 8th in the BCS. Bowl: Holiday
2003: finished 10th in the BCS. Bowl: Fiesta*
2011: finished 8th in the BCS. Bowl: Cotton
Thirteen years of the BCS. Six top 10 finishes in those 13 years. One BCS appearance—and that one mandated. And the team is 3-2 in the five completed games of this list, so it’s not like they’re dogs.
Fuck the BCS.
*AQ champion. I’m sure the Fiesta Bowl looked for some way out of it.
It’s not about the record, it’s how many butts will a school put in the seats in the respective stadiums and TV ratings. Kansas State rates very low on the followers willing to travel list and do not draw on TV. That’s the exact same reason a 12-1 highly ranked Boise State team was skipped over for the Orange Bowl for non BCS Michigan. Boise States reward for being one of the best teams in the country this year is the Turd, err, Las Vegas Bowl.
3-2, including a loss in that ridiculous Alamo Bowl placement. So let’s call it 3-1.
This is the point. They deserved a top-shelf game in at least half of these.
Top 10 finish is mediocre? Really? Especially when the voters associated with the traditional power programs won’t give you the time of day?
Put up or shut up, Snarky. Who’s your team, and how many times have they finished in the top 10 of the BCS? What’s their BCS record? What’s their bowl record? Have they ever been shafted?
You’re correct to an extent. But here’s the thing–K-State travels really well, though you wouldn’t know it by national media coverage. The Cotton Bowl has been sold out since September. And every college fan watches the BCS games.
1998 - Indiana St, Northern Illinois, NE Louisiana, all at home
1999 - Temple, UTEP, Utah State, all at home
2000 - Iowa (Eddie Robinson Classic at Arrowhead Stadium), Louisiana Tech, Ball State, North Texas, 3 at home, 1 just a couple hours away
2002 - Western Kentucky, Louisiana-Monroe, Eastern Illinois (Tony Romo!), USC, all at home
2003 - Cal (BCA Classic at Arrowhead), Troy State, McNeese State, UMass, Marshall, 4 at home
2011 - Eastern Kentucky, Kent State, Miami, 2 at home, game in Miami
I’d have more sympathy if they were willing to travel a bit more for BCS conference road games. They did this year, by some miracle, because Snyder was upset to have the game against Miami, but they couldn’t get out of it. Every team plays cupcakes every year, but most contenders will at least schedule 1 OOC game against a team you could expect to be a tough opponent. Miami-Ohio State, Florida State-Oklahoma, Bama-Penn State, Nebraska-Washington, Michigan-Notre Dame, and so on. Of all those KSU games above, only USC and Miami look like they were scheduled years in advance. Play tougher competition if you want to prove you’re worthy of BCS at large bids. There’s only one way to get past the rep of playing only cupcakes.
K-State went to progressively better bowls throughout their rise in the 90’s, culminating with a Fiesta Bowl appearance in 1997 against Syracuse, the last year before the BCS and a game which they won. If you’re really interested, the bowl progression looked like this:
Copper–>Aloha–>Holiday–>Cotton–>Fiesta.
You’ll note the steady progression.
Then the BCS started. Since then it’s been Alamo–>Holiday–>Cotton–>Insight–>Holiday–>Fiesta–>Texas–>Pinstripe–>Cotton. (And yes, there are gaps in non-bowl years there.)
Let me rephrase the question for Snarky’s benefit. Can anyone think of a team that’s finished in the top 10 of the BCS five times that’s been excluded from every BCS bowl game? (I’m obviously excluding the AQ, and focusing on the voters’ perfidy/homerism.)
You realize that the voters and computers of the BCS take these into account, yes? So with the non-con schedule accounted for, how do you justify leaving the #3 or #6 team out of the BCS?
Ok, we’ll look at who was picked for BCS bowls those years without being a conference champ:
1998 - #4 Ohio State (Sugar) and #8 Florida (Orange). Florida fans gave an absolute sellout to the Orange Bowl, and OSU was, I think, the best team that year.
1999 - #8 Michigan (Orange) and #5 Tennessee (Fiesta). Two huge fan bases, one with a major national following and the other was the defending champion.
2000 - #6 Oregon State and Notre Dame (both in the Fiesta). Notre Dame is obvious. You probably have a legit gripe with OSU, though I enjoyed them beating up ND.
2002 - #4 USC (auto bid) and #5 Iowa (both in the Orange). USC has a major following nationwide, and Iowa travels really well. Both were ranked higher anyway.
2011 - #13 Michigan and #11 VPI (Sugar), #4 Stanford (auto bid for Fiesta). VPI shouldn’t be there. Michigan at least has some defining wins (Notre Dame, Nebraska, Ohio State, and yes I know those 3 weren’t powers this year, but they’re names that grab attention of casual fans who think it’s an impressive win for Michigan), and they’re “back,” meaning people will tune in. No one knows or cares about KSU. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s not just travel, but TV, too.
It seems to me that of those 5 years, only 2 of the 10 teams got in when maybe KSU should have been invited. I don’t know how well Oregon State traveled in 2000, but they were higher ranked, and part of a very good and top-heavy Pac10 that season. They had their first good season in ages and were a nice story…similar to KSU, but newer. By 2000, everyone knew about KSU and had seen them play Nebraska, OU, and A&M.
To be blunt, I have always thought K-State has always played a rotten OOC schedule.
From 1996 to 2011, here are the OOC teams (64 games) they have played since 1995: (non bowl games)
AQ Conference Teams (11):
California
Cincinnati (two times)
Iowa
Louisville (two times)
Miami
Southern California (two times)
UCLA (twice)
Edited, wanted to say that I was composing this post before I saw the above posts.
FCS Teams (14):
Illinois St.
Indiana St. (two times)
Massachusetts (two times)
McNeese St.
Missouri St. (two times)
Northern Illinois (three times)
Tennessee Tech
Eastern Kentucky
Montana St.
Div I, Non AQ
Akron
Ball St.
Bowling Green
Central Florida
Colorado St.
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Kent St
Louisiana Tech (two times)
Louisiana-Lafayette (three times)
Louisiana-Monroe (two times)
Marshall (three times)
New Mexico St.
North Texas (four times)
Ohio
Rice (TX)
San Jose St. (CA)
Temple (PA) (two times)
Texas-El Paso
Troy (AL)
Utah St.
Western Kentucky (two times)
Not only do they not schedule many AQ teams (significantly less than one per year), they don’t play any of the routinely good non-AQ teams. (Utah, TCU, Boise, Tulsa, Navy)
And I doubt there are many AQ teams that have played as many FCS teams as K-State in the last 15 yrs.
As not a fan of K-State, but show no hatred of them either, it appears that they do not not even think they are ready for prime time by scheduling so many weak teams.
I don’t disagree with you. At all. There are years when K-State has been ranked highly and a more deserving but lower-ranked team was invited. And I’m fine with that.
If K-State was left out of half of the BCS games it qualified for, I’d bitch but not too loudly. The fact is that K-State has been left out of every BCS game it deserved a shot at, excluding the AQ in 2003.
I invite you to defend either the '98 or '11 season to me.
I’ll defend it for the sake of argument, but like notfrommensa, I’m not a fan nor do I dislike KSU.
1998, KSU started out ranked #6, and stayed high with an easy-peasy OOC schedule. Ohio State started #1 (they were an extremely talented team that put a whole lot players in the NFL). They played at #11 WVU to open the season and then #21 Mizzou came to Columbus. The BigXII hadn’t reached its pinnacle yet, and I think the BigTen was better at that time (Michigan, PSU, OSU, and Wisconsin were all very good, and Purdue was on the eve of a Rose Bowl season with Drew Brees).
KSU had a close win at #11 Colorado, and then a big home win against defending co-champ Nebraska (which had lost a lot of players from that championship team, including the qb Frost). They had another close game against Mizzou (at Columbia) before losing to TA&M. OSU rolled through their schedule until a home upset against 6-6 MSU. Then they got back on a roll for their last 2 games.
My thinking is that because OSU was #1 for most of the season, people assumed they were better, and were therefore a victim of the new BCS, and should get the bid for the Sugar Bowl. Plus, there’s the knowledge they’d travel well (back in '98, would anyone think KSU would out travel OSU?). In the end, they had 2 common opponents, and OSU was 2-0 with convincing wins, and KSU was 1-1 with a close win and an overtime loss. KSU also to the 4th best BigTen school (Purdue) in the Alamo Bowl. Florida was simply a decision made by the Orange Bowl based on economics. They were #8 and coming off a loss to FSU with lots of NFL talent, but not as good as KSU.
This year, I agree that KSU is more deserving than VPI. When travel, tv, and overall record are brought in, I see why Michigan was picked. They beat “name” schools, and if you ask the more-than-casual , but not die-hard fan who played a harder schedule, a 2-loss Michigan or 2-loss KSU team, because of the history KSU has for scheduling weak teams (6-6 Miami! :p), they’d pick Michigan.
1998- Lost to unranked Purdue. Meh, no complaints here.
1999- Sure, you should have had a better bowl game.
2000- You finish 9th and get the Cotton Bowl, completely reasonable.
2002- FSU won their conference, KSU didn’t. Meh.
2003- You got your game. (and lost)
2011- Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, completely reasonable for finishing 8th.
So you get passed over for the BCS bowls… except when you aren’t. BURN THE FUCKER TO THE GROUND!
Huh? Why would you take that out of the equation? You were #3 in the country for that game, and lost - if that’s not an indication of KSU being consistently overrated, I don’t know what is.
I too am a K-State alumnus but not much of a football fan. I always assumed K-state must have an awful football program because that other Kansas college gets all the press. So many people know who the Jayhawks are but when I say “no, I went to Kansas STATE” they are baffled. There are actually two (2!) colleges in Kansas and they both have sports teams. Who knew?
I’m not sure why K-State has to answer for their out of conference schedule when for years and years other BCS-qualified teams have been scheduling cupcake out of conference schedules. A few examples from this year–and these are ONLY from teams picked to go to a BCS bowl:
Alabama (#2 BCS): Kent State, North Texas, Georgia Southern. (Only BCS team: Penn State.)
OK State (#3 BCS): Louisana-Lafayette, Tulsa, Arizona. (If BCS conferences had relegation and promotion, Arizona might be on the chopping block for their run of foul years.)
Michigan (one of the teams picked over K-State): Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, San Diego State. (If they had Central Michigan and Northern Michigan they’d have a full set. Only BCS team: Notre Dame.)
Now you really want to see an OOC schedule full of suck? Check out Virginia Tech: Appalachian State, East Carolina, Arkansas State, Marshall. That’s no BCS teams, one FCS team, a Sun Belt team everybody forgets exists, a 5-7 Conference USA team, and a team that limped through a Conference USA schedule to finish 6-6 and score a prized bowl matchup with Florida International. This is the team K-State was passed over for.
Truth is, just about every BCS team tries to schedule an easy OOC schedule. Teams like LSU this year are rightly lauded, but they’re lauded because they’re the exception, not the rule.
