Yes, I know the  Broncos are stuck in a conference that gets no respect. But I remember when Fresno State was making its runs at the BCS out of that conference and Fresno took a different approach. That squad would schedule the toughest non-conference teams it could.

It beat some of them, too. Now when you do that, you often have to take two road games for every home game. Or even no home games. Too bad. If you want to be ranked among the top teams — play the top teams.

This season Boise State has played Miami of Ohio, Bowling Green and UC-Davis. That’s no way to build up BCS points.

The only reason the Broncos are as high as they are in the BCS ranking is that Oregon has gotten hot and with its good record, has provided a lot of positive BCS points for Boise State. If they get passed by the Ducks, it’s probably correct.

There is no way those guys are as good as Oregon at this point of the season. And hey — who said the BCS was fair. Get your university president to lobby everyone for a playoff.

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I’d never thought much about the leverage that college students might have with athletic departments all over the country.

Until I found BCSbusters.com.

If you’re in college, or wish you were, you really need to go to that site. It’s maintained by a group of college kids in Portland (who attend a college that doesn’t even have football!) who are fed up. And they’ve found a little bit of leverage where I think they might have a valid way of impacting that system.

Every year, students pour millions into college athletic departments with student fees. In many cases, those athletic departments — and football programs — would be in some serious financial trouble without that contribution.

But what if students decided to rebel and withhold that money until the whole BCS thing is fixed? Or better yet, abolished? I’m not sure, but I can tell you right now that it would frighten the daylights out of some colleges to even hear of a student senate contemplating legislation that would cut off funds.

And why shouldn’t students get involved? Perhaps it’s the only thing that would help. I’m so sick of this stinky stuff — a bunch of university presidents bowing down to the bowl bigwigs in a corrupt system that really makes no sense in the modern world.

And it’s so ridiculously unnecessary. Previously I’ve outlined my plan to use almost all the existing bowl games to host national playoff games, suddenly turning obscure bowls into first-round playoff matchups that could feature some of the top teams in the country.

And talk about television revenue! It would make March Madness look like chicken feed. But oh yeah — there are all these reasons that we can’t do it. Of course, none of those apply to every other level of NCAA and NAIA football, where playoffs already exist.

Anyway, these kids at BCSbusters.com have it figured out. I’d love to see people all over the country involved in this — just to make university administrations uneasy, if nothing else. Please kids, go there, register for their newsletter and forums, send the link to your friends and get involved.

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I was impressed this morning on ESPN radio to hear that network’s Ivan Maisel say he thought the Pac-10 is on a par with the SEC this season. That helps Oregon a bit because I’m afraid Colin Cowherd is correct when he says that around the country, when people see USC lose a conference game, the first reaction is that, well, the Trojans are down a little.

It’s never that someone else in the conference is simply better.

That’s something the Ducks are trying to fight. I think the Trojans ARE down a little. But come on, Oregon is good. And if that conference is ever going to consistently get teams into the BCS title game that aren’t named USC, it’s going to take some national recognition of the strength of the Pac-10.

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Not totally sure they will, but they should. Why? I mean, after all they were beaten by the Broncos on opening night of the season.

Well, several things in this ridiculous system work in Oregon’s favor. It’s a cliche that with the BCS you want to lose early, if you’re going to lose. Teams have done it for years. And for many years, teams finish ahead of other teams they’ve lost games to.

If I’m voting in a poll right now, I put the Ducks ahead of Boise State. Why? Because right now they’re the better team. That’s what you have to consider when you’re voting.

Look, I said this at the time: Boise State is extremely well coached. This team can get ready to play anyone in the country for one game. But take them out of that weak conference, put them in a real conference where they’d have to play a tough opponent every week and they’d lose two or three games every season.

And yes, by jumping Oregon ahead of Boise State, you’d also create inequities in some people’s eyes that might help, eventually, tear the corrupt system down.

Great performance by the Ducks last night. Great. Cannot imagine what they’re going through right now down at USC. That was just not a Trojan team, was it? Ducks made them look like a WAC team.

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Look, I think college football needs a playoff, too. I can’t stand the BCS. But to me, every second our congressional leaders spend worrying about college football is time they should be trying to figure out creative ways to get us out of the economic mess we’re in. Running college football is not why we elect these dolts.

But led by Utah’s Orrin Hatch, that’s exactly what they’re doing. And my guess is, they’ll eventually come up looking like the same fools they were during the steroid hearings, when so many of them fawned over Roger Clemens.

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You may have already seen this but I’m guessing most of you have not. The man who practically invented new-age statistical analysis in sports tells you why the statistical analysis part of the BCS is ridiculous. Bill James is the best.

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I just heard from a pal who knows a lot more about the BCS than I do (I confess, I’m a playoff guy and hate the whole BCS mess). He says that the Pac-10 doesn’t get as much money for its second bowl team as I thought. Sorry, my bad. The additional payout, according to him, is $4.5 million and not $17 million. So while there is still quite a pot of additional revenue, there isn’t the gigantic financial incentive for the Pac-10 to get Oregon State into the Rose Bowl that I thought.

That would work out to only about $450,000, not $1.5 million per school — chicken feed by today’s big-time college athletics’ money-squandering standards. That’s not even going to buy enough Guitar Hero games to make the football team happy.

So go ahead, Ducks — you can try to win. No use tanking it.

And for all you people out there so alarmed by my suggestion that the Ducks ought to take a dive in the game . . . it’s called SATIRE. It’s a lost art. I was just kidding, for heaven’s sakes. Relax and chill out. You know and I know that nobody is going to intentionally lose the Civil War. And nobody would seriously suggest they do.

At least I thought you knew that.

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I’m sure most of the other schools in the Pac-10 would like to see USC beaten out of a Rose Bowl berth. Everyone loves an underdog and seriously, Oregon State, by winning, would stand as a symbol to other schools in the conference that, yes, it CAN be done on a smaller budget.

But that’s a chump-change reason to root for OSU compared to this – there is a lot of money riding on a Beaver win. BCS bowls come with a very big payout. And the Beavers are the Pac-10′s last hope of getting two teams in BCS bowls this season. The Trojans should grab one of those berths, even if they don’t go to the Rose Bowl. Oregon State would sneak in by virtue of its Rose Bowl berth. But if the Beavers lose to the Ducks, there’s not another BCS team in the conference.

What does that mean in a conference where bowl payouts are divided equally? Near as I can tell, it’s more than $1.5 million per university riding on an OSU win Saturday in Corvallis. BCS bowl payouts are about $17 million. And when you get down to it, if the Ducks win the game they’ll cost themselves a million and a half bucks!

Not that they care.

And yes, even in the high-stakes world of college football, $1.5 million accounts for a lot of video games and plasma screens in your locker room.

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