The Wrong Cinderella?

The sports media has focused on Boise State this year as perhaps the ultimate “BCS buster” – the team that may finally break through from a non-BCS conference to play for the BCS title.

In line with this thinking the Broncos were a preseason 5th in the Coaches’ Poll, and 3rd on the AP ballot. (One wonders if the media voters might be more encouraged to create a “BCS buster” than the Coaches.).

TCU, although positioned nearly as favorably as Boise State (7th Coaches’, 6th AP), has pretty much been an afterthought.

Based on the evidence three games into the season, that thinking needs to change.

Here’s the Horned Frog’s schedule -

09/04/10 Oregon St. 30-21
09/11/10 Tennessee Tech 62-7
09/18/10 Baylor 45-10
09/24/10 SMU
10/02/10 Colorado St.
10/09/10 Wyoming
10/16/10 BYU
10/23/10 Air Force
10/30/10 UNLV
11/06/10 Utah
11/13/10 San Diego St.
11/27/10 New Mexico

Not only do the Frogs play Oregon State and Wyoming, like the Broncos, they have Baylor, BYU, Air Force and Utah.

Now here’s the Bronco’s lineup -

09/06/10 Virginia Tech 33-30
09/18/10 Wyoming 51-6
09/25/10 Oregon St.
10/02/10 New Mexico St.
10/09/10 Toledo
10/16/10 San Jose St.
10/26/10 Louisiana Tech
11/06/10 Hawaii
11/12/10 Idaho
11/19/10 Fresno St.
11/26/10 Nevada
12/04/10 Utah St.

We now know that Virginia Tech is, well awful, and won’t be ranked again this year. After the game against the Beavers this weekend, what does Boise face? Nevada? I don’t see much meat on this schedule.

Sure BYU, Air Force and Utah aren’t an SEC schedule, but they are pretty decent teams, especially compared to Boise’s slate.

After 3 weeks in the season, TCU has the 6th ranked Scoring Offense (to Boise’s 15th ranked), and 9th ranked Scoring Defense (Boise is 34th).

To the credit of the BlogPoll voters they seem to get this. In the BlogPoll TCU is 4th, one spot ahead of Boise.

It will be interesting to see how Boise handles the Beavers. But to my thinking, so far, TCU looks better to the eye test if the BCS needs busting.