I posted this on Maize and Brew earlier today but it seems appropriate to repeat it here. I am making some slight edits for clarity and correction of facts.

First, a qualification. I am neither a Michigan fan nor a detractor. I like to watch good quality football and more often than not, Michigan has provided that. My own college team (Buffalo) is pathetic enough to merit derision from everyone, especially our own fans.

When I say that this has been coming for a long time, I do not mean that as a criticism against Michigan specifically but against the top-flight teams from the BCS conferences as a whole. Ever since the BCS was created in 1998 it's job has not been to promote the best teams and conferences but to engage in protectionism from outside competition. It is designed to ensure their dominance in the media market and to use that collaboration with the national sports media to perpetuate that dominance without having to test it on the field against a top-tier non-BCS school in a meaningful environment. That's why the talking heads are playing up the magnitude of the upset forgetting the fact that top BCS teams have been deliberately avoiding top non-BCS teams for decades to prevent scenarios like today's. No BCS program wants a repeat of 1984. They do not want anyone outside their little circle to threaten their financial viability at the gate and with the tv advertisers.

For nearly a decade when top non-BCS teams have come knocking on the ADs' doors trying to get on the schedule, the top BCS teams have far more often than not cowardly run away. The absolute last thing a potential title contender wants is to face a team early on in the season that can feasibly beat them. One loss would end the season before it begins. That's why Tulane and Marshall after their undefeated seasons in '98 and '99 couldn't buy a game against a top BCS conference team. That's why BGSU when they started breaking in the top-25 on a regular basis were having Big 12 teams break scheduled games with them. Now that Boise State has proven themselves as one of the dominant programs in the country and has beaten a top-flight BCS team in a major bowl game, no contending team in the BCS wants anything to do with them because they know a loss would be far too devastating at this point of the season.

What the events of today should have shown to everyone is that the perceived dominance of the BCS conferences is nowhere near as great as those conferences and their media spokesmen want you to believe and that that has been true for quite a few years now. The gap in talent and coaching ability has been shrinking at an alarming rate and the BCS ADs know it which is why they work as hard as they do to exclude the non-BCS conference teams from title competition. It was only a matter of time before a title-caliber BCS conference team felt secure enough, as Michigan did this year, to put a top non-BCS conference team on their schedule and have it bite them in the ass. Michigan, the Big Ten, the BCS conferences and the national sports media actually started believing their own propaganda, forgetting that dominance isn't something that is given to you, you're not just better because everyone keeps telling you you are...dominance is something you have to earn and fight for every single day. Oklahoma forgot that in January. The Wolverines forgot it today and they will be paying the price for their incompetence and arrogance for a very long time.

The Appalachian States, the New Hampshires and the Boise States of the world will no longer tolerate being treated with contempt, scorn and ridicule by programs that simply assume are their betters without being asked to prove it on the field. The Mouse has Roared and the big-conference teams are finding that they haven't been caging a mouse but a tiger...and that the tiger is going for their throats.