Boise State's national championship hopes get legs

Apparently, we're not the only ones harboring unwarranted hopeful feelings about Boise State winning a national championship. The computers have our backs, too.

One of the six computers involved in the BCS rankings has the Broncos in line to play in this year's title game. Now if only we could get the season to end today.

BCS operator Kenneth Massey has USC and Boise State as his top two teams this week.

Bronco fans, could you imagine how amazing it would be to have a Trojan-Bronco national championship? Forget for a moment how incredibly unlikely it is that this will happen and just bask in the warm glow of irrational possibility. Kellen Moore vs. Mark Sanchez. Ian Johnson vs. Joe McKnight. Jeron Johnson vs. Taylor Mays. Coach Pete vs. Coach Pete.

OK, now we're just getting way too excited. This needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Too bad stupid reality has to bring us back to earth. As 1/6th of the BCS computer formula, Massey's rankings hardly constitute a consensus. Utah and Wisconsin are tops in another computer poll, and the much more likely matchup of USC and LSU was chosen by two others. Then you have to factor in the human polls, which currently have Boise State in the non-threatening twenties.

Basically, for the computers and pollsters to keep this Boise State national championship train moving, a few unlikely things will need to happen.

• Every other team in a non-BCS conference will have to have at least four losses.


• BYU and Utah will have to lose winnable games to bad MWC teams.


• Idaho State will have to go back in time and beat Idaho and North Dakota.


• Ditto Bowling Green with Minnesota.

Provided time travel was actually possible and provided teams like Georgia and USC would have meltdowns of epic proportions, we guess this scenario could work. But we're not holding our breath.

No, we're just taking pleasure in the fleeting moments of our Boise State Broncos being chosen to play in a national championship game by some random computer formula that overvalues in-state Division I-AA rivalries, bye weeks, and Kellen Moore's completion percentage.

We might not get this chance ever again.

Read more: For a laugh, check out the early season BCS rankings [LA Times]