No-one will play them, because Hawaii insists on actually playing home games. When teams fly to Hawaii, they get beat, because of the "jet lag" factor. So no good teams will risk getting beat and jeapordizing "their" potential ranking.
So? Suck it up. Travel to the mainland. Even if it's just one big non-conference road game a year. You don't hear Kent State or UNI whining because ISU won't go there and they have to play two road games. You do what you have to do. Don't say "nobody will play us" when that's simply not true.
Although I do not think that Hawaii has a top-rated defense that would survive being undefeated in the SEC (similar to Kentucky), beating up on them because of their schedule without doing the same to Ohio State isn't fair.
OSU defeated two teams with a winning conference record - Michigan and Wisconsin. Michigan lost to Appy State, Oregon, Wisconsin and OSU, and only beat 1 team with a winning conference record - Illinois (the same Illini that Iowa and Mizzou also beat). Wisconsin only had a winning conference record because their fourth road game was Minnesota, and they barely won that - otherwise, they lost all of their B10 road games and barely survived at UNLV early in the year.
OSU's best nonconference win - Washington. Otherwise, they only beat D1AA Youngstown State, Akron (4-8) and Kent (3-9).
Hawaii beat Boise State (comparable or better than Michigan this year) and Fresno State (I would put money on Fresno State at a neutral site over Wisconsin), crushed the same UNLV team at UNLV that 1 week prior almost beat Wisconsin and also beat Washington. Only difference, they don't have any losses.
You're comparing WAC teams to Big 10 teams. Boise and Hawaii are decent in the WAC. Fresno is tolerable, but the REST of that conference is HORRIBLE. UNLV is 2-10 this year. 2 and freaking 10. If you're resting on the fact that you crushed a 2 win team at home as justification that your schedule is "ok", you've got a pretty weak argument. You can look at non-conference schedules all you want. Yeah Ohio State's is pretty weak. No debating that.
Hawaii's is PUTRID, and their conference schedule is nowhere NEAR as tough as Ohio State's. Even a down Big 10 is way, WAY better than the WAC this year, from top to bottom. Sure Boise might be able to play with Michigan, and Fresno MIGHT give Wisconsin a bit of trouble, but Nevada lost to Northwestern (who shares the basement with Iowa), and from there it gets worse.
I'm not defending Ohio State's schedule, since it clearly is soft, but you could put a dozen teams in D1 through Hawaii's schedule and they'd be undefeated right now.
Say it's an 8 game playoff: I'd be much happier with the team that's getting left out for the 8th spot than the team that gets left out of the BCS title game simply because in most years, there's a big difference between the 1st and 8th teams, and the 8th seed doesn't normally stand a shot against the top team. This year may be the exception, because there is no team far and away better than everyone else.
OK, let's put an 8 team playoff together. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the 6 BCS conferences get their champions in. This is probably pretty logical, since there is no way a playoff will happen without at LEAST that happening. That leaves 2 at-large bids. So far you have LSU, USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Ohio State. Now, how can you NOT put Hawaii in there as the only undefeated team? This means that Georgia, Arizona State, Missouri and Kansas are all fighting for one spot. I don't see any of their resumes being any more or less impressive than the other. How do you decide there? Someone deserving of that spot will get left out. Georgia could well be the hottest team in the nation, but won't have a chance to play for the national championship.
It's also making me sick to see some of you on here "ok" with Illinois being in the Rose Bowl just because it's "good" that a Big 10 team gets to play there. With the current structure of the BCS, the good ol' boy system of traditional conference matchups should have nothing to do with who gets to play in the BCS Bowls...maybe once some of the old fogies who still hold onto their traditional ways die off, then we'll see a legit system for all of this. Until then they will sit in their luxury suites sipping Chardonnay and toasting to the great Pac 10/Big 10 battles of years past and gloating about how they're standing in the way of a playoff.
Look, the BCS exists SOLELY to put #1 vs #2 and then to fill the rest of the bowl games with matchups that the member bowls want. They aren't "free-for-all" bowl games. They still have conference tie-ins. I don't have any problem at all with the bowls fulfilling their conference tie-ins. The games are just exhibitions anyway, and really don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. In this case, the BCS took away the Rose Bowl's tie-in (Ohio State) and the Rose Bowl took the next team in the conference to which it was tied into.
