What will it take for non-traditional ranked teams in the country to gain respect for their great seasons?

Question

Terry Bowden writes for Yahoo! sports.... "Ohio State, Boston College, Arizona State and Kansas not only will have a difficult time running the table, but could very well lose all or most of their remaining games. I’m not saying they will, but just that they could."

They are all having great seasons, Why not applaud them for where they are instead of justifying why your top picks are nowhere to be seen? Why kill someone else's hopes and dreams to satisfy your own enormous egos?

Answer 1

Some teams are ranked based on reputation, that is the nature of the beast. Some non-traditional teams will have to wait their turn.

Answer 2

The landscape of college football is changing right before our eyes. In times past, even with scholarship limitations, the top schools got the top talent, and the second-tier schools got the leftovers. Everyone learned who those top schools were, and we all assumed that only those schools would be competing for the National Championship.
But now things are changing. There are so many games on TV now, that a high school prospect who will not start until his junior year at a top school, can go to one of those second-tier schools and start right away AND be seen on TV 3 or 4 times a year. The TV option wasn't available to him 10 years ago, so if he ever wanted to be on TV, he would be forced to wait his turn at a top school.
Since the talent is distributed more evenly now, the old way of looking at college football no longer applies. Unfortunately, the "experts" who have been around college football for years are too close to it to recognize that this change is taking place.

Answer 3

All of them play much tougher schedules at the back end than they have up until now, which is why he made the statement.

OSU - @Penn State, Illinois, Wisconsin, @Michigan
BC - @Virginia Tech, Florida State, @Maryland, @Clemson, Miami
ASU - California, @Oregon, @UCLA, Southern California, Arizona
Kansas - @Texas A&M, Nebraska, @Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Missouri (in KC)

With the exception of Kansas (who, let's face it, could send out the women's crew team and they could beat Iowa State), those teams could lose all of those games. OSU's remaining opponents are 23-9, BC's are 23-11, ASU's are 23-12 (with half of those losses being Arizona's), and Kansas's are 22-17. Look at their schedules prior to this and none of them have played anywhere near that quality (especially Ohio State and Kansas).

Answer 4

I suspect he was thinking of Arizona State mostly, who have all the meat of their schedule coming up.

Both Arizona State & BC have the opportunity to 'prove' themselves with their upcoming schedule. Ohio State (a traditional ranked team) just has a soft Big 10 schedule between them and the title game (but not soft enough for them to make it - Michigan will take them down).

Answer 5

Mainly,
Big wins, over schools known as big schools, or over highly ranked teams. Plus it has to come together with a good winning season or two. See Rutgers for example.