Big Ten adds teams to count as Power Five opponents, Boise State not included

Most of the Power Five conferences have a stipulation -- sans the big 12 and Pac-12 -- require teams to play at least one conference of its same status. There are exceptions like Notre Dame, BYU and Army; so the independents.

The Big Ten made an amendment to that by adding a few more teams that count as that out of conference Power Five team. They will decide on a case by case basis, yet no criteria is mentioned.

BYU, Army, Notre Dame, Cincinnati & UConn will count toward Big 10’s requirement of playing 1 non-league Power 5 opponent, source told @ESPN

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) September 22, 2015

The first three were known and seeing Cincinnati does make sense but UConn? This is the same Huskies team that won just two games last year and one of those wins was a 19-16 victory over Stony Brook. They do have two wins this year but to add UConn makes zero sense, and even the history of Cincinnati football is more acceptable but still an interesting point.

The glaring omission is not seeing Boise State on this list, because the Broncos are clearly the best program outside of the Power Five conferences. Everyone knows the history of the Broncos winning three Fiesta Bowls and multiple undefeated seasons.

To see the Big Ten pick and choose teams that count as a Power Five conference is fine for them to do, but make the teams on par with other Power Five teams. However, maybe UConn being added is to keep the field level and they can get around this argument by saying UConn is equal to Wake Forest or Vanderbilt who are fortunate to be in a Power Five conference.

UConn on this list really makes this set of teams questionable and Boise State should be there, and maybe Big Ten teams are scared to play Boise state. They do play Michigan State in 2022 and 2023, but the conference will make the rules up as they go as who can and can not count as an alleged Power Five out of conference opponent.