Small Schools Hoping to Win Big in 2007

The Frat Boy News Daily Sports Page

College Football (compiled by SunHerald.com)

Those tricksters from Boise State struck a blow for all the teams relegated to second-class status by the Bowl Championship Series.

When the Broncos turned the Fiesta Bowl into a fairy tale with a hook-n-lateral, a Statue of Liberty and a postgame proposal, they pulled off one of the most wildly entertaining upsets in college football history and helped clear the way for the next upstart to break through the BCS glass ceiling.

In Honolulu and Hattiesburg, from Fort Worth, Texas, to Salt Lake City, Boise State's victory was celebrated as a landmark event in the battle for equality in big-time college football.

"It changed the way people think," said Hawaii coach June Jones, whose Warriors are a contender to be this season's BCS buster, if they can get past Boise State in the Western Athletic Conference.

Or is this the year TCU gets in after twice making a run at the BCS, only to fall short? Then again, Mountain West Conference rival Utah, the original BCS buster, could get in the way of the Horned Frogs.

Or maybe Conference USA finally gets a piece of the lucrative BCS pie, with a talented and experienced Southern Mississippi team emerging.

"I think it's certainly much more optimistic than maybe it was before (Boise State's win)," Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower said.

Though Boise State's 43-42 victory over Oklahoma created a buzz that hasn't subsided, this uprising in college football truly started in 2004 when Utah became the first team from a league without an automatic berth in the BCS to play in one of the big-dollar bowl games. And the Utes got in when it was even tougher to do so.