Playoffs and Minnows

This post by MGBlog is interesting, and this part echoed some things that I mentioned on the CC podcast a couple weeks ago.

First of all, true have-nots: go away. You are burning millions of dollars for no reason. San Jose State, what do you think your end game is in D-I football?

Anyway: when Boise or TCU-equivalent or Utah-equivalent goes undefeated and knocks off a good BCS team in the nonconference and annihilates all of its weaker opposition, they might get picked. Bill Connolly ballparked what four-team playoffs would look like* if run by a selection committee with Bill Connolly’s brain and came out with five have-not bids (2 TCU, 1 Utah, 1 Cincinnati, 1 Louisville). Hinton got one fewer. “Might” may not sound good to snubbed Boise State, but 1) make your chip shot field goals against Nevada, seriously, and 2) five bids are five more than a two-team playoff provided.

If a Sun Belt team has that resume, they’ll get picked. It will never be a Sun Belt team because they don’t belong in D-I. If you are asking me to have sympathy for teams that exist to take guaranteed beatings for guaranteed paychecks… no. No, I will not. WKU won a I-AA national title a few years back, and now they’ve traded that for perpetual obscurity and head-beatings. I can’t stop you but don’t ask me to care about your plight.

— MGoBlog

The reality is that UNT will need a lot more cache than Apogee and CUSA to be mainstream-level relevant. It sucks but it is reality. I suppose the real question is whether or not we as fans and alums would revolt if UNT voluntarily dropped down to FCS. I certainly would be extremely disappointed. Given the university’s relative position among the football playing schools in the region, it would be akin to giving up. There is no way UNT could compete as a full-service university with an FCS football team as sporting showpiece.

Sigh.