Special feature

BCS Busters Taking a look at the non-BCS teams that have the biggest chances of getting to a BCS bowl. NBCSports.com

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Still, with only 10 BCS berths available, it seems tacitly unjust that the champions of all six BCS conferences receive an automatic berth, while a non-BCS conference champion only receives one if it is in the top 12 of the final BCS standings. If the season were to end today (and I understand that there is much football to be played), Maryland, which is No. 23 in the BCS standings, could be the ACC representative. West Virginia, which is No. 25 in the BCS, could be the Big East representative.

And that is before we even cite the outrageousness of Oregon State, currently residing outside the BCS top 25, being the Pac-10 representative.

Meanwhile, five non-BCS schools — Utah, Boise State, TCU, BYU and Ball State — are all rated ahead of them, and only one would be given an automatic berth. It is all so very archaic, so, well, three-fifths compromise of the BCS.

Money talks. This isn’t news, whether the prize be a BCS bowl bid or a presidential campaign (hello, $630 million campaign war chest). The BCS considers itself accountable to the fans in terms of putting the two most worthy teams in its national championship game. And, while a third-party candidate (Aubun, LSU, USC, etc.) may occasionally feel disenfranchised, the two schools selected are always culled from among the two or three most deserving.

Beyond that, however, the BCS is about television, under-the-table guarantees, conference coffers, television, well-heeled alumni who travel en masse, and television. It’s Tammany Hall. The conferences are the political parties, the power-brokers, while networks serve as the deep-pocket contributors.

I don’t know where Erin Andrews fits into this entire metaphor, but something tells me that her appeal reaches across the aisle.

Anyway, the majority of us, I imagine, would prefer to see more than just Utah or TCU (or Boise State) be this year’s Boise State. In a season in which both the ACC and Big East have been mired in mediocrity, many of us would welcome the sight of a second non-BCS representative in a BCS bowl.

And, of course, while a second mid-major cannot supplant an uninspiring ACC or Big East foe, there would still be three BCS spots remaining after the six BCS conference champions and what will likely be the Mountain West champ claim the first seven berths. Peering out on the horizon, you would imagine that a second Big 12 school and a second SEC school would be chosen. That would leave the final spot as a choice between perhaps a 10-2 Ohio State and a 12-0 Boise State (or an 11-1 Utah or an 11-1 BYU).

That, my friends, is the audacity of hope. As Senator John McCain so eloquently said on Tuesday night, “I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it.”

And so, this season, should TCU defeat Utah, would likely mark a landmark moment: The first non-BCS school with a loss to play in a BCS bowl. After all, Barack Obama wasn’t the first African-American to stage a presidential campaign.

It’s one small step for justice. And, if the non-BCS conferences continue to play entertaining football, to narrow the gap (especially with the MWC and WAC) between themselves and their BCS brethren, then those obsolescent barriers between the BCS powers and their equally deserving non-BCS upstarts will crumble.

It’s not a matter of change that you can believe in. It’s a matter that you can always believe in change. After all, this is a year that began with a school from Hawaii being thumped in the Sugar Bowl and is ending with a man from Hawaii being elected president.

A decade ago, who could have imagined either?

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