Boise St. plays Virginia Tech tonight. It’s the only top team on their schedule. Given their initial ranking, a win and subsequent undefeated season would make them serious contenders for a place in the national title game, a place they would not deserve. Boise St. plays not just a non-AQ schedule, but one of the easiest schedules in FBS. Even going undefeated they do not merit a place in a title game. They deserve the chance to compete for a national title, but only in a playoff.

The Broncos started #3 in the country. The Florida Gators are rated #4. Here are their respective schedules by APPR rankings compiled from 2004 to 2009. There are 120 teams in the FBS.

Boise St.

1-25: Virginia Tech (4)
25-50: Oregon State (35)
50-75: Fresno State (75)
75-100: Nevada (77), Hawaii (88), Wyoming (94), Toledo (98)
100-120: Louisiana Tech (103), Utah St. (111), San Jose St. (114), Idaho (118), New Mexico St. (119)

Florida

1-25: Alabama (3), LSU (7), Georgia (9), Florida St. (17), Tennessee (25)
25-50: South Florida (30), South Carolina (33), Kentucky (45)
50-75: Vanderbilt (57), Mississippi St. (63)
75-100:
100-120: Miami of Ohio (102), Appalachin St. (FCS)
* Florida would have to play title game.

The teams facing Boise St. and Florida are nowhere near equivalent. Boise St’s average opponent ranking is 86.3. Giving App State a value of 120 (probably not crediting them enough), Florida’s is 42.6. Boise St. plays two teams with an APPR ranking of 74 or higher. Florida plays 10. Florida plays three of the top 10 teams in FBS. Boise St. plays four of the bottom ten.

Let’s say Boise St. beats Virginia Tech and finishes undefeated. Florida wins the SEC with one loss to Alabama. Florida would still have six wins better than Boise St.’s second best win (seven counting title game).  It is harder to lose only one game with Florida’s schedule than go undefeated with Boise St’s.  Most teams in the top AQ conferences could make the same claim.

Boise St.’s situation is unfair. Their pitiful schedule prevents them proving themselves worthy for a national title, however good they may be. They can’t get better teams to play them because they are good. The solution to that is not to, as Gregg Doyel puts it, make Boise St. a cause out of sympathy and pretend their accomplishments justify a place in the title game. It is to give them a legit opportunity to earn their way to that title game through a playoff.

[Photo via Getty]