On the first day of 2008, Georgia football beat Hawaii in the sugar bowl, 41-10. Normally, a team from the a conference like that WAC isn’t even invited to play in a BCS like the Sugar Bowl. However, Hawaii’s undefeated season won them that rare opportunity this year, even though they never played an opponent that was nationally ranked.

Had Hawaii won, it would have made a strong argument that any team that can go undefeated should go to a big-time bowl. Hawaii’s loss, however, suggests that a football program needs to do more than simply go a season without loosing. Consider this Sugar Bowl story quote from Rivals.com writer Steve Megargee:

Usually when a top team from a BCS conference faces an upstart from a less established league, the BCS program is going to win. Even in a year as crazy as this one.

BYU isn’t one of those teams blessed to belong to a BCS conference. In order for BYU to ever play in a bowl games like the Sugar Bowl, BYU will have to be ranked as one of the very top football teams in the country (probably top-10). That ranking will be even more difficult now that Hawaii, ranked number 10 before their loss, has shown that simply being undefeated isn’t proof of a great football team.

BYU is going to have to do more than play great and win all their games. BYU will have to do that against other teams that are considered great.

Good news comes from the fact that even though the BYU’s Mountain West Conference isn’t a BCS conference, 4 of the 5 teams from the conference that played in various (smaller) bowl games won those games.