The rules were not "agreed" to by any of the conferences. These were changes made by the BCS to fend off the lawsuits and antitrust efforts that were about to be put into motion several years ago by the smaller conferences when Boise St. got snubbed.
There's no guarantee that Florida would have "brutalized" anyone. They have been one of the most inconsistent teams this year having to block a kick just to squeek out a win against the Ragin Cajuns and turning the ball over SIX times on offense against Georgia. They play defense pretty well and just last week looked great against Florida State, but to say they would have brutalized OU is reaching. And the way the Big 12 plays defense has a lot to do with how they play offense. The same can be said about the way the SEC plays offense. Or how about that SEC conference championship game? Looked an awful lot like a Big 12 final score to me. Giving up 525 yards of offense to a NOT GOOD quarterback. McCarron stunk.
The rules are the rules and you can't fault NI for that, but if anyone thinks they actually DESERVE to be in that game, you're out of your mind. I can guarantee you that the Orange Bowl and ESPN DID NOT WANT THAT TEAM IN THE ORANGE BOWL. There will be a lot of empty seats in that stadium I can promise. The Florida State fans won't want to travel to watch them play a crap team and Northern Illinois doesn't even have a big enough fan base AT HOME to fill it. The only saving grace for the Orange Bowl MAY be the fact that a lot of Florida State fans will be able to drive to the game so they may go watch it.
Here's a fun fact: when a team gets selected for the Orange Bowl, each team is REQUIRED to purchase an allotment of 17,500 tickets for their fans. Anyone know how many seats are in the entire Northern Illinois stadium? 15,600. OU isn't going to be the only one taking it in the rear for this game...
