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LAS VEGAS As Boise State fans filed into Sam Boyd Stadium, a cozy if unadorned little venue that is far off The Strip and even farther off the college football grid they were greeted by a man hawking 5 seat cushions. His pitch: Those metal benches get awfully cold at night.
It was yet another reminder of the cost of a missed field goal and the cold reality that comes with it for Boise State: When you're trying to break into the Bowl Championship Series as an outsider, you'd better be perfect.
Not so for Alabama, which lost to LSU, but which will get another shot with the national championship at stake. Oklahoma State and Stanford, also with single blemishes, will be playing in the Fiesta Bowl. Michigan and Virginia Tech, each with two losses and not ranked in the top 10, will play in the Sugar Bowl.
Meanwhile, Boise State, whose only blemishes the last two seasons have been the result of missed last-second field goals, was relegated from playing for the national championship to a pair of appearances in the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl.
Thus, the Broncos were left to show the bowl committees, and the rest of the country, what they were missing Thursday by walloping Arizona State, 56-24.
Doug Martin returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and rushed for 151 yards, earning the game's MVP award, and star quarterback Kellen Moore displayed his exquisite timing and accuracy. But it was the defense that was the real star: Jamar Taylor thwarted any hopes of an Arizona State comeback with a 100-yard interception return, Travis Stanway returned a fumble for a score and the Broncos kept the high-scoring Sun Devils offense out of the end zone until early in the fourth quarter.
"We wanted to come out and make a statement that we belong with the top teams in the nation," said defensive tackle Shea McClellin, who had three tackles behind the line of scrimmage. "Hopefully, the rest of the nation saw that."
They may have also seen a group of Boise State fans seated in the front row, each wearing a black T-shirt with a single white letter, spelling out O-C-C-U-P-Y B-C-S.
Yes, it's true that the BCS system is only responsible for placing the two best teams together, which they may or may not have done with LSU and Alabama.
But it's the bowl system co-opted and corrupted that allows the Sugar Bowl to choose 13th-ranked Michigan and 17th-ranked Virginia Tech, depriving Boise State of a New Year's Day stage and the Mountain West of an 18 million payday.
The Broncos are a natural magnet for anti-BCS or pro-playoff sentiment. Boise State is the outsider that doesn't act like it, famously shocking Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl and continuing to take on and beat the boys from the money conferences.
In the last three years, Boise State has taken out the Pac-10 champion (Oregon), the ACC champion (Virginia Tech) and the SEC East champion (Georgia). Moore and his fellow seniors leave school with a record of 6-0 against BCS conference schools.
It makes you wonder what Boise State has to do other than recruit a kicker and join the SEC?
Boise State will move to the Big East next season, but with so many schools coming and going, it is not a certainty that conference will keep its automatic bid.
"It's so fluid," Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. "There's no guarantee."
Earlier this month, Petersen said everyone was tired of the BCS, that it didn't make sense and that the whole system needed to be overhauled.
It was a rare show of frustration from Petersen, whose only losses over the last four years have been by a total of five points. He was more fatalistic Thursday night.
"I knew if we didn't win all our games, we wouldn't go," Petersen said. "It's not something we talk about. We just talk about playing as well as we can if it works out, it works out. We're not going to let one game against a good team ruin the season just because we're not perfect. That's the world we live in and we've been living in it for a long time. We've come to accept it, and that's how we train our guys to think."
So, rather than dwell on who they weren't playing, the Broncos focused instead on making sure their seniors went out with a bang. The leader among them is Moore, whose 50 wins are the most by a Division I quarterback. He played his final game at Boise State, as did Martin, three offensive linemen and 10 starters on defense.
The Broncos, leading 28-3 at halftime, had some hiccups to begin the second half.
Arizona State's Rashad Ross returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and Moore's fumble and interception set up the Sun Devils with two more chances to close the gap.
But the Broncos held on downs after Sun Devils quarterback Brock Osweiler waved off the punt team (nothing new about the inmates running the asylum under Dennis Erickson) and Taylor picked off another fourth-down pass and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown, and the rout was on.
But Petersen promised his team even as it misses Moore would not be rebuilding.
"We need to reload, and other guys will step up like they have in the past," Petersen said.
The Broncos will play their next game in 2012, when they open at Michigan State. There is, however, that other Michigan team, one they would have liked to take a crack in a little over a week, a team they figured late Thursday that they could beat.
"I'd like to think so, yes," Martin said, the senior knowing from experience that it's the only popularity contest Boise State will ever win.
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