By Gaylon Krizak-Guest Writer
“We’re through the looking-glass here, people … white is black and black is white.” — Kevin Costner, as Jim Garrison, “JFK”
By the time the Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl and the other Jan. 1 games had been played, the eventual national champion’s season had been over for 11 days.
Five teams (including Nebraska on two occasions) had relinquished the No. 1 ranking over the course of the season, leaving the distinction by the 12th week to a team that hadn’t even been in the preseason Top 25 and which played outside the elite power conferences.
Brigham Young was no stranger to success by 1984; the Cougars had won 11 games or more in four of the five previous seasons. But playing a schedule that included no teams ranked in the final Associated Press poll (Pittsburgh flamed out after an early No. 3 ranking), BYU cruised to a 12-0 regular-season record and its seventh straight Holiday Bowl berth as Western Athletic Conference champion.
The Cougars’ unbeaten record and unlikely No. 1 ranking brought the subject of choosing a Holiday Bowl opponent more scrutiny than ever. The spot was offered to Washington, which had been No. 1 for four weeks before losing to Southern Cal and in the process missing out on the Pac-10’s Rose Bowl slot. But the Huskies still were No. 4 nationally with just that one loss.
They said no, opting for the more prestigious (and better-paying) Orange Bowl opposite No. 2 Oklahoma. After all, it was common knowledge that since the Associated Press began handing out its national championship after the bowls rather than at the end of the regular season, no team finishing No. 1 had played in a December bowl.
So BYU wound up playing Michigan, which had been a top-five team before quarterback Jim Harbaugh broke his arm but which came to San Diego sporting a 6-5 record. The Wolverines’ national cachet carried more weight than their record — worse than the 7-4 mark with which Arizona, Illinois and Clemson stayed home during a season in which there were just 17 bowls.
Robbie Bosco led BYU to an unexpected national title in 1984
Accordingly, the Cougars and QB Robbie Bosco — third in the Heisman voting, behind Flutie and Ohio State running back Keith Byars — beat the Wolverines, but by a final 24-17 margin that didn’t exactly silence the BYU critics. The Cougars trailed entering the fourth quarter, but won when Bosco threw a 13-yard TD pass to Kelly Smith with 1:23 remaining.
Washington went on to handle OU, 28-17. No. 3 Florida (9-1-1) was out of the picture, banned from bowls by the NCAA. No. 5 Nebraska finished with two losses. Simply put, the voters’ choice was uninspiring but clear: unbeaten and largely untested BYU, or once-beaten Washington.
By just 20 poll points, the AP voters picked BYU. It was at that time the closest final margin in the poll’s 49-year history (the final 1991 poll margin was just four points, with Washington again on the short end, this time to Miami).
Conspiracy theorists point to BYU’s title season as the genesis for what evolved into the Bowl Championship Series — more precisely, the leaders of the power conferences began to organize the major bowls into first a coalition, then an alliance, and finally the BCS as it now exists. Their goal, say the theorists: to prevent another BYU from claiming to be the best in the land.
Has it worked? Ask Tulane (1998), Marshall (1999) and Hawaii (2007); be prepared to ask twice when questioning Boise State (2004, 2006) and Utah (2004, 2008). Each fielded an unbeaten team from outside the six power conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10 and SEC) plus Notre Dame. None played in the BCS championship game, and only relaxed eligibility rules (and the addition of the separate BCS title game) allowed Utah, Boise State and Hawaii into non-title BCS games