Boise State proved very little by smoking San Jose State, 48-0, on Saturday.

San Jose State is a minor member of the threadbare Western Athletic Conference. It is Boise State’s conference, too, and the Broncos are required to play conference games against conference teams. It’s in the rules.

The computers and the poll voters, the ones who continue to breathe life into the Bowl Championship Series system of determining a champion, use such mismatches to build more questions about Boise State.

What the Broncos should have done, of course, is go rogue and schedule 12 games against teams from Automatic Qualifying conferences.

All those teams are great and powerful, as we all know.

Teams like Cal, which lost to USC, 48-14, on Saturday and was down, 42-0, at halftime.

Like Kansas, which lost to Kansas State, 59-7, last Thursday.

Like Minnesota, which lost to Northern Illinois and South Dakota.

Like Washington State, which came from behind to nip Montana State for its only victory so far.

Like Ole Miss, which lost to Jacksonville State.

Like Connecticut, which lost to Temple.

Like Tennessee, which beat Alabama-Birmingham in overtime.

Like Cincinnati, which lost to Fresno State, which plays in the WAC.

Oklahoma is No. 1 in the first BCS list of the season. Utah State is 0-2 in the WAC. Oklahoma beat Utah State by seven points and was outgained by a yard.

Saturday the Sooners beat Iowa State, 52-0. Did anyone lament the lack of competition Oklahoma faced? No, because Iowa State is a proud member of an AQ conference.

The previous week, Iowa State was crushed, 68-27, by Utah, which is not in an AQ conference. At least, not yet.

Next year the Utes will be in the expanded Pac-10 and suddenly will be buzzed into the boardroom. No longer will Utah have to go undefeated to nail down a BCS bowl. All they’ll have to do is win the Pac-10.

Certainly they would be at least a co-favorite in the proposed Pac-12 South this year. And they have won nine consecutive bowl games. Among their victims are Cal, USC, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and Alabama.

One year the Utes are guilty until proven innocent. The next year, the opposite. Nothing about the Utah program will have changed, from 2010 to 2011. Just the perception.

Under that theory, people who join country clubs become better golfers automatically.

We all know how strange this system is. Without a tournament, the identification of a true champion is mostly futile.

But the worst part is that the system is feudal.

Assumptions are made about universities based on their market, their tradition, their enrollment or their reputation. Upward mobility is not a factor or even a real possibility.

If basketball worked like this, Butler would have bounced off the glass ceiling before the NCAA Tournament even started.

Instead, Butler won its way to within a final second of a championship last spring in what was easily the most memorable college basketball title game of the new century.

No one knows whether Boise State is among the top two teams and no one will ever know, even if the Broncos make the BCS championship game.

Those who call Boise State undeserving are entitled to that opinion. They are mistaken when they base it on the company the Broncos are forced to keep.