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Where Boise State would finish in this year's Big East, Big Ten, SEC, and others

By Kevan Lee
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On Friday, I threw together a guess at the Mountain West preseason power rankings, featuring Boise State at No. 1 and then a giant gap and then everyone else. The official Mountain West preseason poll, which hits the Internet tomorrow morning, will probably agree - for sure about the Boise State parts if not the putting Fresno fourth.

Slotting Boise State in a preseason Mountain West was fun, albeit easy. How about slotting Boise State in this year's version of next year's conference? Where would Boise State be in a preseason Big East poll?

  1. Boise State
  2. Louisville
  3. Rutgers
  4. UCONN
  5. South Florida
  6. Pittsburgh
  7. Cincinnati
  8. Syracuse
  9. Temple

(HT to Loque for the idea.)

Boise State's biggest competition for the imaginary Big East title would be Louisville. The Cardinals are a fringe Top 25 team (more like Top 30, realistically), and the next best teams are Top 40s. Top to bottom, the Big East is way better than the Mountain West, but at the top, there's no one that the Broncos couldn't match or beat.

But why stop at the Big East? College football has five other name-brand conferences, each of which would be better off with a little Boise State. Here is how I would fill out a preseason media poll in each of the other five BCS conferences were the conferences to include the Broncos and were I to be considered, by some cosmic miracle, "media."

Pac-12

North

  1. Oregon
  2. Washington
  3. Boise State
  4. Stanford
  5. Washington State
  6. Cal
  7. Oregon State

South

  1. USC
  2. Boise State
  3. Utah
  4. UCLA
  5. Arizona State
  6. Arizona
  7. Colorado
The battle between the Broncos, Huskies, and Cardinal Tree in the Pac-12 North would be fun to watch, especially if they played all at once, although I have no idea how that would work. I'd for sure watch, though.

SEC

East

  1. Georgia
  2. South Carolina
  3. Florida
  4. Boise State
  5. Missouri
  6. Tennessee
  7. Vanderbilt
  8. Kentucky

West

  1. LSU
  2. Alabama
  3. Arkansas
  4. Boise State
  5. Auburn
  6. Texas A&M
  7. Mississippi State
  8. Ole Miss
I would like to think that Boise State is better than Florida and would actually be the third-best SEC East team. Feel free to agree/disagree with me on that.

Big 12

  1. Oklahoma
  2. West Virginia
  3. Texas
  4. Oklahoma State
  5. Boise State
  6. TCU
  7. Kansas State
  8. Baylor
  9. Iowa State
  10. Texas Tech
  11. Kansas
I would expect the Broncos to finish anywhere from sixth to third in this year's Big 12. There is probably some bad blogging juju coming my way for putting Boise State ahead of TCU after what happened last year.

Big Ten

Leaders

  1. Wisconsin
  2. Ohio State
  3. Boise State
  4. Purdue
  5. Illinois
  6. Penn State
  7. Indiana

Legends

  1. Michigan
  2. Michigan State
  3. Nebraska
  4. Boise State
  5. Iowa
  6. Northwestern
  7. Minnesota

ACC

Atlantic

  1. Florida State
  2. Clemson
  3. Boise State
  4. N.C. State
  5. Wake Forest
  6. Boston College
  7. Maryland

Coastal

  1. Virginia Tech
  2. Boise State
  3. Georgia Tech
  4. North Carolina
  5. Virginia
  6. Duke
  7. Miami

Your turn

Where do you think Boise State would finish in each of these conferences? Where do you think I went wrong? Where do you think I went right? Share your thoughts in the comments.