[MEbenhoe]

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The way the BCS works, Wisconsin has no reason to play a non-conference game harder than a Washington State type team when their conference schedule has Penn State, OSU, and Michigan. There just isn't an incentive there.

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Wait what? I thought the point of the BCS was the exact opposite of what you are saying. In the old days (I am a Husker fanatic FWIW) Nebraska would pay Lincoln High school 5 times (hyperbole) and then their Big 12 schedule and the way the AP polls worked was the best record went to the title game, the purpose of the BCS is to eliminate soft schedules and to actually take a look at who you play in case when the season ends and you have three undefeated teams or 4 1-loss teams etc.

This is also the reason USC was going to the title game above all 1-loss teams this year if they were to beat UCLA in that last game b/c they had a schedule like this:

09/02 at Arkansas
09/16 #19 Nebraska
09/23 at Arizona
09/30 at Wash St
10/07 Washington
10/14 Arizona St
10/28 at Oregon St
11/04 at Stanford
11/11 #21 Oregon
11/18 #17 California
11/25 #6 N Dame
12/02 at UCLA

Arkansas, Nebraska and ND non-conference games puts them in the title game. Bowling Green, SDSU, Buffalo and W. Illinois puts you in a non-BCS bowl with one loss. USC went to the Rose with 2 losses b/c of who they played, and there is a HUGE difference. So you simply can't say there isn't incentive b/c there is 12.75 MILLION dollars worth of incentive (between the Rose and Capital One Bowl).

But you probably also know that if Wisconsin played USC's schedule they aren't a 1 loss team too though right?

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USC went to the Rose Bowl because they won the Pac-10, it had nothing to do with their non-conference schedule. If a team like USC or Wisconsin goes undefeated, they go to the national championship regardless of what their non-conference schedule was because they are from the Big Ten/Pac Ten. If USC plays all cupcakes in non-conference they still go to the Rose Bowl this year. If they would have had all cupcakes and gone undefeated, they go to the national championship over a 1 loss Florida team. There is zero incentive to have a tough non-conference schedule if you're from a BCS conference not named the Big East.