People losing minds, mass idiocy ensues: Boise get 7 first place votes in poll

Well, Florida looked like shit against Miami (Ohio), and Boise beat the ACC favorite and a team ranked from #5 (Coaches) to #10 (AP) in a virtual road game. After week 1, they may be the best team. It likely won't stay that way. But for now, you can't conclusively say any other team is better.

This is why we can't have nice things

15 game winning streak. Though that isn't against a BCS schedule, they did win all of their BCS games during that time. Furthermore, the Boise State AD has made it quite clear that, "if you call and agree to a home and home, we will play you."

Could they beat those teams? I dunno. Then again, would any of the top teams be expected to run the table against the other top teams? Would OSU be expected to emerge undefeated from a string of games against Alabama, Texas, Florida, Boise State, etcetera? Probably not. So does BSU have to do that to get the respect?

Sorry. You win 15 games in a row and play at least some of them against top quality opponents, AND you beat the crap out of your tomato cans, you deserve consideration for first place. You just do.

Now, if VT goes out and has a horrible season, thus proving that BSU's marquee win isn't all that marquee, I'm sure the view will be properly adjusted. But that record earns top respect no matter what.

I remember Utah beat Bama pretty bad, so i wouldn't be surprised if boise beat bama

BSU just won at Virginia Tech.  What has any other team done this season to deserve to be #1?

One of the seven, Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, based his vote solely upon the week one play and quality of opponent.  His number 8 team in the country - Michigan.  It was week one.  I wouldn't get too upset.  Boise will drop back once they start playing their conference schedule.

Crazier, the guy who voted Michigan #8, or the people who voted Boise #1? Boise beat a team most have in their top 10-15. No one else has done that this year. Seems more than reasonable to me.

"Why not?"  I tend to agree with ShockFX here.  After week 1 who is the best?  Who had the best win? As long as these 7 "journalists" are willing to change their vote in a week where other top teams are beating big time opponents and Boise is beating Idaho St., then I see nothing wrong with it.  Of course we know that some, to justify the fact that they put them there to begin with, will continue to put them there through every garbage game they play.  That is where it gets ludicrous. 

votes in a couple of weeks when they beat Oregon State.   Do they deserve the first place votes for their win against VT, probably not.  But they will continue to get those votes as long as they keep winning and everyone else loses atleast one game.

Allowing Boise State into the national title game would destroy almost any hopes we have that programs will schedule more competitive nonconference games going forward. At the very least, removing strength of schedule as a factor definitely eliminates one of the major incentives to play games that will improve it.

EDIT: I agree that polls are pointless right now and I don't care where Boise State or anyone else is ranked. My post is only for the sake of conversation in case it's relevant in early December.

Since it's highly unlikely that Michigan's season has national championship (or even BCS) aspirations, I don't really give a damn who plays for the NC this year.  Might as well be Boise St. or TCU for all I care.  Either they're good enough to win, in which case they will, or they're not, and we can stop talking about for a while.  

There's a good chance it's OSU vs. Boise in the NC game. Honestly, I'd cheer for Boise if it was against OSU in the NC game.  It's a win-win, because if Boise wins, OSU loses and if OSU wins, then it's somehow cheapened by the fact that they only beat a WAC team in the final game. 

Polls like this one have a lot of voters, so there will always be outliers like the seven who voted BSU number one. I don't agree with their votes, but I am resigned to BSU being one of the teams that makes it into the "championship" game. Despite the old "any given day" adage, Oregon State seems to be the only team with a legitimate chance to win, and it is a home game for BSU.

If BSU and/or TCU makes it and the system isn't changed, it should make teams in good conferences think twice before scheduling tough OOC games. Why would a team that already has four or five tough conference games schedule another tough game preseason after BSU or TCU proves that you only have to beat one or two top-25 teams to get into the "championship" game?

For that matter, why would a Big East team with maybe two tough conference games bother scheduling tough OOC games if BSU, TCU, or both prove that the risk is higher than the upside?

Well, everything I came in to say has already been said.  Stupid knowledgable and eloquent fan base. 

::kicks random can in road, shuffles off home to pout::

A lot of people vote Boise State up there because they want to send a big "fuck you" to the BCS.  Nobody voting Boise State over Ohio State would would pick them to beat OSU on a neutral field without a point spread.

They deserve ALL of the first place votes at this point in the season.  Who has Alabama played?  Ohio State?  Boise State beat VT, Alabama beat SJSU and OSU beat Marshall.  Of those, Boise is the only one that actually played competition and thus deserve first place.  Lets not discuss cup cakes in the schedule since Boise hasn't played any yet.   Boise is moving to the MWC, which will help their schedule competitiveness.

I refuse to take them seriously while they have smurf turf.

Yeah! There's no way they could be a "big boy" team like... Alabama (what, Utah beat them?)... or Oklahoma (ooh, they lost to Boise State?) ... If they played in the SEC and had to play the tough teams like Ole Miss (ouch) or Vanderbilt (tough school) or South Carolina (routed by UConn)... Oh, wait.

I think you are missing the real "idiocy" which is believing that Boise State can't beat a "real" team because... well, they just couldn't. Ignoring the facts of beating Oklahoma, TCU, Oregon and Virginia Tech but preferring to abide in the realms of believing what you feel is true instead of what you observe.

And the truly sad thing is that beliefs of SID's and coaches are relevant to the equation for determining a national champion. In basketball, if you don't believe Butler could compete with Duke, it's a moot point because Butler (or Duke) gets to prove it. This alone is an enourmous reason why our national championship system sucks.

Their place near the top of the polls has been proven on the field, at least to a certain degree.  Plus, with 20 of 22 starters back from last year's unbeaten team, how can you not rank them near or at the top of the polls?

This why polls shouldn't be taken until at least 3 weeks in, preferably 5.

Gonna be cool when we are getting first place votes again.  At this point I don't care who else gets them. But frankly, they are the first team that has earned any on the field  this year.

I find it funny that the 2 programs that get shredded the most in these forums as undeserving of their accomplishments--Boise and Iowa--are two teams I've won stacks and stacks of money on.

I feel like my work is falling on deaf ears, folks.

I'd get into another Boise argument here, but I am way too busy counting money after one of their games.

Again.

Well, Boise doesn't play anyone else, so it'll be pretty tough for them to move up from here.

If Michigan plays their schedule last year, we likely go 9-3, 10-2, or even 11-1 given all of the cannon fodder.

If Boise plays in the Big Ten or SEC, they have mutiple losses.

If Boise plays Ohio State, Texas, Florida, USC, et. al., who do you think is favored?

And yet the most often cited reason is that they're likely to go 12-0 given their schedule.  What does that have to do with anything?  So would any number of teams in college football.

I don't understand why everybody's so upset.  Just let them make the title game, get monstrously blown out by a team like Alabama, thereby destroying any chance another BCS buster team ever has of making the MNC game.

Then push for a playoff!

I think they should be positivly rewarded for playing a good team and beating them in week 1. By doing this you could cancel out the cupcake week 1 games that we all love to hate. However, as the season progresses and they start to play more and more low tier programs you will see their ranking fall.

You can contend all you want about Boise being a top team or not a top team, but the fact is, no one really knows what will happen until Boise actually gets a shot to play one.  That's probably not going to happen in the regualr season because I doubt a top school, like Alabama, Florida, or Texas will take the risk of scheduling them. 

Anyone can talk an offer an opinion.  I think Boise would beat OSU if they played them.  I think a Boise game against Bama, Florida, or Texas would be anyones game.  But that just an opinion.  What we really need is a legitimate playoff to really settle who is the best.  I don't think we even had a legitmate champion last season.  Boise St., a team that lost one game in two years, and was unbeaten last year, did not even have a chance at it.  For that matter, neither would Michigan if they would have went unbeaten.  They would have been on the outside looking in, playing in some also ran bowl.

I hope Boise gets a lot of 1st place votes, all season if they continue to win.  I'd like to see what they could do against so called top competition. 

I actually like Boise St. but I was rooting against them. Why? Because I honestly don't want to hear about this for the rest of the season. It's only the second week of college football and we are already talking about the NC game. I wish a month or two would go by before everyone starts talking about who belongs in the title game.

Let's just see what happens.  It's perverse to talk about Boise St while simultaneously complaining that everyone is talking about Boise St.  They have to play Oregon St still, and lots can still happen.  None of the major powerhouse teams are really looking great at the moment, surely that is why Boise St has got everyone's attention.

Besides, we have more pressing issues to worry about.... like Mike Golic not knowing DR's last name and some dude saying mean things about Tate on local radio.

First of all, Alabama lost a TON of players on defense from last year.  That should not go unheeded.

Secondly, who cares?  It's silly to get riled up about Week 2 polls when there are still about 12 or 13 weeks left in the season.  These are basically preseason polls, which almost all of us agree are completely useless.

There really shouldn't even be polls right now at all.  I have absolutely no idea who the top 10 teams in the country are, much less the #1 team.

Boise is and always will be highly debated because they are only tested a few times a year so we don't really find out much about them. Do they dial it up on the rare occasions when they actually play a real opponent? You bet. Could they do it week in and week out in the Big Ten or SEC? We will never know. On average they were favored to win by 25 points against conference opponents last year. That stat is very telling.....

If they don't fall flat on their faces they will be the 2010-2011 National Champs.