If you are reading this you have probably seen our Preseason Non-AQ College Football Poll (if not check it out). I am writing this article because of some negative feedback I received about it. The vast majority of responses were positive except for the occasional “My team should have been ranked higher” or “that team shouldn’t be ranked there. They stink.” There was a different kind of negative feedback I received though, that some of the voters and I anticipated. It was from people of the opinion that designating a Non-AQ/Non BCS poll was offensive to their college football program. Or that the term Non-AQ/Non BCS in itself was offensive.
Personally I don't find the term "Non BCS" offensive I just find the BCS in general offensive. Whatever term you want to use for us schools from the WAC, MAC, MWC, Sun Belt, or C-USA (or even if you don't want to give us a term) there is a divide between “us” and “them” (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC).
In my experience teams (or more specifically fans of those teams) from AQ conferences are more hesitant to use the phrase "Non BCS" than those of us in the Non AQ conferences. For example, if you go to any college football message board you will likely find a ton of posts proclaiming one school (from an AQ conference) is better than another school (from a non AQ conference) but the poster VERY RARELY uses the reason "because they are a non BCS team" even though it is quite obvious that that is their train of thought. Just as often as not their proclamation of the one school being better than the other is questionable at best.
They don't seem to want to admit that they think a certain school should be perceived as better than another simply because they have AQ status. On one particular college football message board that I frequent there are actually people debating whether Boise State deserves a top 10 ranking (in the major college football polls). Yes, I get that they play a relatively soft schedule but when they play the good teams they beat them too. They have essentially everyone returning from last year’s team that finished 4th in the nation, they have finished ranked in the top 15 6 of the last 8 years, and have won 2 out of 2 BCS Bowls they have played in over the last 4 years. Not one of the posters trying to discredit them have mentioned Non BCS or Non AQ.
Really, why would they bring that up? The BCS and all of its members claim to be the best college football teams in the FBS. If there are teams from non AQ schools getting ranked in the top 5/15/25 why would they bring up the fact that they are from non AQ conferences? That would completely discredit their alliance of the "top teams" that they claim to have created.
That is why I don't have a problem using or hearing the term Non AQ/Non BCS. When I use it I don't mean it as "Southern Mississippi the Non BCS team that must not be any good because they weren't chosen for the club" I use it as "Southern Mississippi the team that has been highly competitive over the years against all teams in the FBS, despite the fact that they are denied the advantages granted to 65 FBS teams". Advantages like a bigger share of the money generated by bowl games, using the BCS tag as a selling point for luring recruits, votes in polls from voters who are swayed by the AQ tag, etc.
I want the term Non-AQ or Non-BCS thrown in the faces of “the chosen” as often as possible.
"Hey BCS/AQ team remember how you formed an exclusive group that split the FBS and gave members of that group a bunch of advantages over the teams left out? Yeah? Remember how one of the teams you left out and was denied those advantages whooped your arse last Saturday anyways? That was great!"
"Hey BCS/AQ team ya know how you tried to make it so only teams from the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, SEC would occupy the spots in the top 5 bowl games? Then you remember how one of the Non-AQ teams you intended to deny those spots got in anyways and completely embarrassed one of your elite members? Hilarious!"
They are the ones who should be trying to sweep the inequities under the rug, not us.
Look at where the BCS money went last year:
SEC - $22.2 Million
Big 10 - $22.2 Million
ACC - $17.7 Million
Big East - $17.7 Million
Big 12 - $17.7 Million
Pac 10 - $17.7 Million
MWC - $9.8 Million
WAC - $7.8 Million
C-USA - $2.8 Million
Mac - $2.1 Million
Sun Belt - $1.5 Million
Someone might say "C-USA, the Mac, and the Sun Belt conferences didn't even have a team a BCS bowl, they are lucky they got anything" Tell me who was it that decided the champions of those conferences shouldn't get automatic spots in these high paying bowls? I'm willing to bet it wasn't the MAC, Sun Belt, and C-USA.
Maybe people would argue that those conferences don't deserve to have a team in major bowls because they aren't ranked high enough. It's a valid point but like I mentioned before, there are plenty of advantages given to teams in AQ conferences that allow them to be better (when they ACTUALLY ARE better, which isn’t always the case) than those from non AQ conferences.
Is anybody going to tell me that UNC or NC State or even Duke doesn't get ANY recruits that otherwise would have gone to ECU because they can sell them on their AQ/BCS status? Same goes for Mississippi or Miss State in comparison to USM. Or Texas Tech/ Texas A&M compared to Houston. And the list goes on and on. Or maybe the money they bring in from BCS Bowls allows them to update their facilities in ways that attract players.
I get that $22.2 million (the most any conference gets) only comes out to $1.85 million per team. But you add that up over 10 years and its $18.5 million. You can fund some nice upgrades to your facilities for $18.5 million. By comparison if a team from the MWC goes undefeated every year and makes a BCS bowl each team would get $1.08 million. So over 10 years each team would get $10.8 million and that’s IF they have a team in a BCS Bowl every year. For the WAC it would be $8.6 million IF they have a team in a BCS Bowl every year.
And what of the MWC and WAC? Why is their pay so low? The MWC provided the #4 team heading into the bowls, a higher ranking than the representatives from the ACC, Big 10, and Pac 10. The WAC provided the #6 team, higher than those same 3 conferences. Yet the MWC gets only 44% as much as the Big 10 and only 55% as much as the ACC and Pac 10. The WAC gets 35% as much as the Big 10 and 44% as much as the ACC and Pac 10??? Why?
So all of those reasons are why the Non AQ/Non BCS poll was created. To show that there are good teams out there playing good football despite their disadvantages, and it's not just Boise, BYU, and TCU.
People look at that poll and they see the records from last year: 14-0, 12-1, 11-2, 10-3, 10-3, 10-4, 9-4 and they are forced to face the fact that it is not just a bunch of pathetic teams that are excluded from the AQ status. It is teams that put up great records and beat ranked teams, AQ conference teams. Maybe, just maybe, it will cause a few people to question whether there really is this separation between the "Big 6" and the other conferences. You see that is our goal, not to separate the AQ from the Non AQ but to change the perception of such a seperation by showing that these Non BCS teams play some pretty darn good college football too.
