Two Plus Two Older Archives - TCU in the HOUSTON BOWL???

Okay, this is just my rant on the unfairness of the bowl system. The way these bowls are contractually-obligated toward certain conferences makes it very difficult for a good mid-major to play in a quality bowl game.

TCU is #13 in the BCS with their season done but more football to be played among other top teams. The high likelihood is that UCLA will lose to USC, putting the Frogs up into at least #12 in the final BCS standings. Of course, they'll be eligible, but there's no chance in hell that they'll get an invite to a BCS bowl. I'm okay with that, they had their chance to run the table and earn a BCS bid and they lost to f'ing SMU on the second week of the year. Though they will have qualified for an at-large bid, there are more deserving teams out there (like Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, possibly Miami) who should get the at-large bids.

But...a team that's BCS-eligible that will fail to get an invite should go to one of the next tier of bowls...Cotton, Peach, Gator, Outback...something like that. Reward a team like TCU, who's had a great season, with an opportunity to play in a more spotlighted game against another ranked team that just missed being good enough for BCS inclusion (like an Auburn, Georgia, Texas Tech, Fresno State, etc.). But of course, those bowls all have conference tie-ins, none of them available to the 10-1, BCS #12 or higher MWC Champion. For a team to go from the cusp of the Fiesta, Sugar, or Orange Bowl, not get chosen, and then have the next-best option available to them be the EV1.net Houston Bowl against some unranked mediocre team from the Big 12 North...that just sucks, and it's downright unfair.

Did the Frogs merit BCS inclusion this year the way Utah did last year? No. But does their 10-1 season, highlighted by a win in Norman over OU and an absolute cakewalk to the Mountain West title, deserve a prize better than Houston? I think so.

I realize nobody may care about this issue -- it's just one more way the Big 6 Conference Monopoly continues to crush the talented smaller schools from mid-major conferences (because, uh, South Florida in the Big LEast - with three losses - in all their glory has a chance to play their way into the BCS while TCU, clearly a much better team, would be in Houston). It's just frustrating to me because...over the course of the last 5-8 years, TCU has been one of the top 20 programs in America...no room for argument. They've been in the BCS standings 18 times, gone to bowls 7 of the last 8 years, had four 10-win seasons, a Heisman Trophy finalist/Doak Walker winner who is now arguably the best football player in the world (LaDainian Tomlinson), had lots of kids drafted into the NFL, upset powerful teams...and they still don't get a chance to show the country what they're made of in a big bowl on New Year's Day.

Yuck.