What's the biggest obstacle standing in the way of TCU finally reaching the BCS promised land? That's easy: Air Force. While Patterson and his staff continue to drill that reality into the minds of the Horned Frogs and take a game by game approach, it's only natural for a fanbase as hungry for glory as the purple & white followers of the Frogs to look ahead at what might be.Now certainly, any talk of assuming an undefeated regular season at TCU is a little silly, considering it hasn't happened since the Frogs won the National Championship in 1938. We know all too well that even some of the most talented and well-prepared teams stumble at least once during the course of a grueling college football season.
That being said...there's not a lot of danger in delving into hypotheticals here in the blogosphere, now is there? So IF the Frogs are able to run the gauntlet of the Mountain West and emerge 12-0 in late November, what would be their biggest obstacle to the BCS then? I think we all know it's Boise State (that's if you assume what I believe to be true- that it'll be a cold day in hell before two non-AQ conference schools are allowed into the party the same year).
The official BCS standings don't come out until October 18th, but retired sportswriter Samuel Chi has come up with the "unofficial BCS standings" on his website, BCSguru.com. Here are the unofficial standings as of now:
1. Alabama- 0.9271
2. LSU- 0.9098
3. Florida- 0.8725
4. Texas- 0.8146
5. Boise State- 0.7620
6. Virginia Tech- 0.7403
7. Southern Cal- 0.6946
8. Cincinnati- 0.6200
9. Iowa- 0.6159
10. Ohio State- 0.5872
11. TCU- 0.5821
According to Chi, and contrary to what I had originally thought, the human voters actually have a higher opinion of TCU than the computers. The Frogs find themselves trailing Boise by 3 (Coaches) and 5 (Harris) spots in the human polls, but by margins of 8, 4, 6, 8 and 1 in the five computer polls that currently publish their rankings. What I think you can read into those results is that the computers are far more impressed with the Bronco's opening-night win over Oregon than they are with TCU's road wins at Virginia and Clemson.
There is one school of thought out there that, if both Boise and TCU were to run the table, the Frogs would eventually catch up to the Broncos because their remaining schedule (with BYU, Utah and the overall relative strength of the MWC compared to the WAC) would give TCU the boost needed to pass them in the eyes of both the human voters and the computers. That certainly seems logical to me, but I would never be guilty of assuming that the BCS would be fair.
What the Frogs need (in addition to, most importantly, winning all of their own games) is for the luster of Boise's crown jewel, the Oregon win, to be tarnished. The Ducks certainly haven't been trending in the Frogs' favor lately, as they've outscored their last two opponents by a combined 94-9 and provided Utah with their only loss of the year on September 19th. But Pac-10 teams are notoriously hot & cold, so hopefully they'll cool back off as the season progresses. It also certainly wouldn't hurt for Boise to run into a surprise band saw the way Houston did this past weekend...
But again, while gazing into the crystal ball of the BCS and imagining flying to watch the Frogs play in Miami or New Orleans or wherever might fun, it'll all be for naught if they can't take care of business against each and every one of their conference opponents, starting this Saturday in Colorado Springs.
