FriendFeed: Note to pundits: …

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Note to pundits: you CANNOT necessarily extrapolate, from Cincy and TCU’s positions tomorrow in the #3 and #4 slots (in whichever order), who would’ve been #2 if Texas had lost. Many voters would’ve engaged in a very different calculus, given it much more thought if they’d known they were picking between those teams for #2. We’ll never know result.

TCU vs. Boise in the Fiesta Bowl?

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Stewart Mandel writes:

In another, 11th-hour BCS development, sources tell me the Fiesta Bowl committee took an unexpected turn in its deliberations this week and is now leaning heavily toward a matchup of the two undefeated mid-majors, TCU and Boise State. That would leave the Orange Bowl free to select Iowa or Penn State and send Cincinnati to the Sugar Bowl to face Florida.

Normally, I would hate that idea, for the same reason I loathe NCAA Tournament matchups like Butler vs. Old Dominion and Drake vs. Western Kentucky: they don’t give the mid-majors any opportunity to “validate” their season in the eyes of the skeptics by defeating a major-conference foe.

However, in this case, because the alternative appears to be TCU vs. Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl and Boise State vs. Iowa in the Fiesta Bowl, I’m not sure anything is really lost by setting up the “David vs. David” showdown in Glendale. The Yellow Jackets and Hawkeyes are both 2-loss teams from widely disrespected BCS conferences, so there’s precious little respect to be earned by beating them.

Far more would be gained from a TCU/Boise win against Florida in the Sugar Bowl, of course, as Utah learned last year when it beat Alabama. But that matchup looks unlikely to happen under any circumstances, because of the bowl selection order. So TCU-Boise may be as good an option as any.

Indeed, from a purely Boise-centric perspective, I think the Broncos would gain more respect by beating TCU than by beating Iowa. The same is not necessarily true in reverse: TCU would probably get marginally more conventional-wisdom “validation” from a win over GaTech then from a win over Boise. But it’s not a slam dunk.

In any case, we’ll see tomorrow what the bowls decide. (Though I actually won’t be watching live, as Becky and I are hosting a Christmas party/ceremony that directly conflicts with the selection show.)