I am so tired of the argument given by the haters that Boise State can't hold up to the big schools week in week out. (I'm also tired of hearing that UGA beat itself with a lot of mistakes. Uh, excuse me, good teams force their opponents to make mistakes. But I digress.) The haters always say that we play in a weaker conference with weaker opponents. In fact, I've heard SEC lovers say that their teams totally dominate the little guys in a way that the Broncos simply cannot do. (BTW, their teams only play OOC games against little guys. Kudos to LSU for taking on Oregon. But I digress yet again.) I painstakingly crunched the numbers for the past five season plus this current season to date (10/21) for Boise State and LSU, arguably the most consistent and dominate school over the past six years in the the best conference in the land, the SEC. I compared the points scored and allowed vs ALL OPPONENTS, RANKED OPPONENTS, BCS OPPONENTS, and NON-BCS OPPONENTS, and found that BSU is right on pare with LSU when it comes to point spreads. Here are my findings.

*LSU out scored ALL OPPONENTS 2356 - 1324, a factor of 1.8 to 1

*BSU outscored ALL OPPONENTS 3037 - 1192, a factor of 2.5 to 1; BSU outscores ALL OPPONENTS by a factor of 1.4 to 1 over LSU

* - LSU played 73 opponents. BSU played 72 opponents.

*LSU outscored RANKED OPPONENTS 572 - 478, a factor of 1.2 to 1

*BSU outscored RANKED OPPONENTS 251 - 179, a factor of 1.4 to 1; BSU outscored RANKED OPPONENTS by a factor of 1.17 over LSU

* - LSU played 20 ranked opponents; all were BCS. BSU played 9 ranked opponents; 4 were BCS.

*LSU outscored BCS OPPONENTS 1711 - 1171, a factor or 1.5 to 1

*BSU outscored BCS OPPONENTS 219 - 171, a factor of 1.3 to 1; LSU outscored BCS OPPONENTS by a factor of 1.15 to 1 over BSU

* - LSU played 57 BCS teams; 20 were ranked. BSU played 8 BCS opponents, 5 were ranked.

*LSU outscored NON-BCS OPPONENTS 645 - 153, a factor of 4.2 to 1

*BSU outscored NON-BCS OPPONENTS 2818 - 1021, a factor of 2.8 to 1; LSU outscored NON-BCS OPPONENTS by a factor of 1.5 over BSU

* - LSU played 16 non-BCS teams; non were ranked. BSU played 64 non-BCS teams; 4 were ranked.

The numbers speak for themselves, people. Boise State can hang with the big boys, and they can beat up on the little guys with the best of them.

GO BRONCOS!