Is it Boise State's year to crash BCS title game?

BOISE, Idaho — As he stood before his team ready to address goals and expectations in preparation for Boise State's season, Chris Petersen grabbed the attention of his players and changed the message he recited for years.

"Let's prove everyone right," the Broncos' successful fifth-year coach told his squad.

Say what?

This couldn't be the message coming from Petersen, not after years of eschewing all the public debate about Boise State's place in the college football pantheon. Not after years of claiming to ignore their worthiness as believed by pollsters, pundits and computers.

"People on the outside are giving us some credit and we don't put a whole lot of stock into preseason rankings, but if people are going to say great things and are thinking about us differently, OK then. We'll go ahead," Petersen said. "We've always been kind of coming from nowhere in the past, so now we're certainly not sneaking up on anybody. We'll still have that chip on our shoulder, but it'll be to prove everybody right."

Welcome to the latest chapter in the evolution of the "outsiders" in college football.

Once considered the happy story of the occasional long-shot crashing the BCS's big money party, the non-automatic qualifiers have recently taken up permanent residence, grabbing their share of the millions divvied out from the top-tier bowls.

First came Utah in 2004 and the numbers have only grown, reaching its pinnacle last year when Boise State and TCU marked the first time two non-automatic qualifiers played in the marquee bowl games. The pair faced each other in the Fiesta Bowl, won by Boise State 17-10.

And 2010 may become the watershed moment for those outside schools, clamoring for years to get equal entry into the big money.

Boise State begins the season ranked No. 5 in the coaches poll, and will likely receive another top-5 ranking when the AP Top 25 is released Aug. 21. TCU is ranked seventh by the coaches and could be a top-10 team in the AP poll. Both have schedules challenging enough that, should each go undefeated, they are likely to find themselves with a high enough ranking to be playing in another BCS bowl game.

The shock value of seeing these teams in the BCS is gone, especially after last year.

But what about the ultimate prize: a shot at the national championship?