Like I’m sure many of you did, I spent my Sunday night watching ESPN’s bowl selection show.
Unlike past years, this wasn’t to see where teams were going. Thanks to Twitter, I had pretty much known what most of the bowl matchups would be. Rather, I was interested in hearing what the panel thought about Northern Illinois sneaking into the Orange Bowl.
I was sufficiently ill-prepared for what I was about to hear.
To be honest, I was expecting ESPN to spend two minutes talking about the game, touching on how Northern Illinois only got into the BCS because of a flawed system and the general incompetence of the Big East and the Big Ten.
What I was not expecting was ESPN to spend more than half of the show talking about this game, which included what seemed like an all-out assault on the worthiness of Northern Illinois’ program and players to play with “the big boys.”
Let’s be clear, I don’t have an issue with people saying NIU does not belong in this game. Quite honestly, there are teams that have a better body of work this season that would be more deserving of that berth.
What I do have an issue with, however, is how people have thus far gone about expressing why they don’t believe NIU belongs.
It started with ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit saying, “You’re going to leave Oklahoma out for Northern Illinois? Are you kidding me? It’s an absolute joke,” as if he was completely unaware of the BCS rule that guarantees a team from a non-automatic qualifying conference (such as the MAC) a berth in a BCS bowl game if in finishes in the top 16 of the final BCS standings, and finishes ahead of a conference champion from a BCS conference in those standings.
NIU did that, finishing No. 15 in the standings, in front of Big Ten Champion Wisconsin and Big East Champion Louisville.
The onslaught continued for several minutes, before ending with David Pollack sarcastically asking Jesse Palmer how many players on NIU he thought were recruited to BCS conference teams. The answer to that: probably not a lot. But the whole sequence was snarky, and that was a question that did nothing to further the broadcast any.
The thing that miffs me about this whole situation is why Northern Illinois is seemingly being used as the whipping boy for people to take out their BCS frustrations. After all, Northern Illinois did nothing wrong. They have only done what was asked of them all season, which was take care of business.
The reason they got into the BCS wasn’t because they threatened someone to make it happen — which you would think was the case based on the way ESPN’s talking heads reacted to their inclusion. The reason NIU got into the BCS is because the system is broken.
If you want to blame anyone, blame that system. The reason the rule that allowed NIU into the BCS was put there to protect the BCS from anti-trust lawsuits. In short, executives cared more about protecting their money than ensuring that the most deserving teams were selected.
Want to blame someone else? Blame the Big East and the Big Ten. If either of those conferences were any form of respectable this year, then this rule would never have been in play.
But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture here. Even though the BCS as we currently know it will only be around a few more years, NIU’s Orange Bowl berth is a huge win for mid-major teams.
It is the first time in the history of the BCS that a team from a non-automatic qualifying conference made a BCS bowl game with a loss on its record.
The Orange Bowl berth is also a huge win for the MAC. NIU is the first MAC school to bust the BCS party, which will undoubtedly give the conference some added prestige.
Most importanly, don’t fault the Huskies for their berth. If you feel the need to blame something, blame the broken system.
