| Look Who's Talking......... This is an occasional round-up of comments made by interested individuals, reporters, conference commissioners, university presidents and others who are paying attention to the efforts of 53 universities that are currently excluded from participating in the richest post-season opportunities in college football. Time for a change? If logic and loyalty and geography and tradition no longer have a place in college football's conference system and its Bowl Championship Series, why continue to allow the infighting, greedy ruling class to still rule? Like the fans, the television networks and the NCAA itself should keep on trusting these six conferences. Especially if they cannot trust one another.
Homer
Simpson as QB?
All for naught? But
the rise of the (Northern Illinois) Huskies to No. 20 in the USA TODAY/ESPN
Coaches' Poll and No. 17 in the Associated Press media poll raises the
mathematical issue of whether even an undefeated season could end in emptiness.
Under the BCS format, Northern llinois could join the pool of teams eligible
for a BCS bowl only by finishing in the top six of the final ratings.
Jeff Sagarin's computer rankings, which are included in the BCS formula,
have Northern Illinois at No. 18. Jerry Palm's rating, a historically
accurate predictor of the BCS poll, has the Huskies 14th.
What are the chances.... Martha Burk has a better chance of being invited to join the Augusta National Golf Club than the (Northern Illinois) Huskies have of sliding in as the last at-large pick to the Fiesta Bowl.
# # # Ouch! Bask, Northern Illinois fans. Bask in the spotlight that so rarely trains upon DeKalb. Enjoy being one of two teams with victories over two Top 25 schools (the other being Ohio State). Enjoy thinking about which BCS bowl you'd like most to attend. Now take a pair of tweezers and yank a hair out of your nose. Stings, doesn't it? That's the BCS system plucking those dreams of grandeur right out of your head.
# # # Poll opinion Bottom line: the BCS is predicated on a lie. The only place it "settles" anything is on the laptops of several hundred sportswriters, talking heads and in the back rooms of the biggest business interests in college football. This is where the national championship talk is coming from: Budweiser, ESPN, ABC,…the people who stand to turn the greatest profit. They're the same people who are pushing college football toward a "superconference" that will bear a very strong resemblance to those pre-season Top-25 polls.
Quick fix? Q. Does adding a fifth BCS bowl game, with easier access to that bowl game for a non-BCS school, solve the problem? A. For Scott Cowen, absolutely not. I'm not interested in a junior-varsity bowl. That may be part of a larger solution, but that alone does not get to where we need to be. We will not have changed anything significantly if all we do is add a bowl game.
# # # A new day "Television executives and B.C.S. presidents ought to pay closer attention. The Bear Bryant days of power in the hands of a few are over. The Saturday night highlights shows are proving that, week in and week out."
# # # Fair play "It's great for college football that non-BCS schools are doing great," Penn State's Joe Paterno said. "The more great teams, the better I like it. Whether it's fair or not to not have a chance to play in a BCS bowl game, my gut feeling is it's unfair."
# # # Playing not so nice The marketing firm that represents the Bowl Championship Series is getting personal. At the bottom of a recent news release, it has included notes disparaging non-BCS brethren. Example: Taking a shot at Tulane's attendance. Trotting out the old BCS-vs.-non-BCS record. "It's certainly not very good spirit intended," one non-BCS conference official said. The cheap shots are bush, especially with Congress, school presidents and lawyers involved still being gentlemen about things. But for the time being, the have-nots have a comeback: In your face.
# # # From our nation’s capitol "Fundamental fairness trumps the fundamental of good marketing," Sensenbrenner said, telling college executives they need to make changes to the BCS system to assure that the "noble aspirations of amateur athletics do not yield to the cold reality of corporate profits."
"This issue is about the future and vitality of D1-A intercollegiate athletics in America, about who has the right to control post-season play in football, and about basic fairness and consistency. The BCS system is inconsistent with how we handle all other NCAA sponsored sports that involve a national championship and it is philosophically at odds with the values we embrace as a system of higher education: access, equal opportunity and fair play. The current system simply does not met any test of fairness when it comes o athletics and it is anathema to everything we stand for in higher education and athletics."
“Perhaps the most pernicious effect of the BCS system is its self-perpetuating nature. The powerful BCS schools continue to be enriched at the expense of the non-BCS schools with the concomitant negative impact on college campuses around the country. The long-term effect of the BCS structure is to drive the non-BCS schools out of competition at the Division I-A level. The massive incongruity that is inherent in the current BCS structure needs to be examined in great depth. I am appreciative of these hearings which have provided an initial forum to highlight a system which is exclusive rather than inclusive…a system which promotes prejudice rather than equality. The BCS combination is unfair in its concept, in its implementation, and in its effect on institutions and student-athletes alike. While I am now out of football, I acknowledge the importance of collegiate football in my life; sadly, under the BCS structure, the opportunity I had for competing for a national championship is being denied to far too many athletes. In today's world of college football, I would have been "on the outside looking in."
“Bowling Green State University is a non-BCS school. As a Division 1A Athletic Department, BGSU Student-Athletes deserve the same opportunities to compete in BCS bowl games as other Division 1A student-athletes. Just because some schools have larger enrollments, are located in more populated area, and have great television coverage should not have any bearing on whether they have the privilege to compete for the top title in Collegiate Football over other student-athletes.”
# # # From Chicago, following the Sept. 8 meeting of non-BCS and BCS presidents "If we can make some marginal improvements that will help them a little bit, I think we're interested in doing that. I think everyone is realistic that there isn't anything we can do ... that is going to solve all the problems of the world. I think they are realistic about that as we are."
“It was successful in the sense that it laid a foundation for future decisions and discussion. I believe that is good news, and it is the news of this meeting.”
# # # Presidents and Football Playoffs “Most of the
college presidents on each side of the B.C.S. debate have said they want
nothing to do with a playoff system. But the presidents with B.C.S. ties
sound disingenuous when they cite as reasons the rich tradition of bowl
games and the ties they have with the communities that play host to those
games.
# # # Hands Off My Pie "When you were one of the have-nots, you were looking in and saying, `Gosh, we want a piece of the pie too. Now that you're one of the haves, you're looking at it the other way around saying, `Why split up the pie more than it is?' You definitely don't want to do that. … Let's be realistic: there are maybe four teams in the country that have a chance to be the best, and I hate to say it, but you're just not one of them if you're in those [non-BCS] leagues."
# # # Scoreboard “This week's
column goes out to Tulane president Scott Cowen. Cowen also may have noticed that six other non-BCS comrades pulled off wins over BCS-conference opponents over the weekend. In one of the most stunning results in recent memory, UNLV pummeled Wisconsin 23-5. Louisiana Tech QB Luke McCown's touchdown pass in the final seconds downed Michigan State. Cincinnati notched its first win in 13 meetings with West Virginia. And so on, and so on”
# # # The Big East on Finger Pointing "I think that what has happened is the BCS has become a target. Everyone's problems now are pointed at us and they say the BCS has caused those problems. I said to somebody, 'Why don't we just disband?' What will happen? The Pac-10 and the Big Ten go to the Rose Bowl, the rest of us will play in major bowls and TV will pay significantly less money. Who gains from that? I would argue those teams in the non-BCS conferences are getting more money and more access than they had in the previous system. I know president Cowen is doing what he has to do. He's arguing about Tulane and the time they went undefeated. They didn't play anybody."
# # # Point, Counterpoint, Point “…[T]hree important points: 1) BCS conferences are filled with football underachievers, such as Vanderbilt, Duke, Baylor, Rutgers, Indiana, Kentucky, Temple, and others, who reap millions annually in BCS profits solely by affiliation; 2) Non-BCS programs, from the start, operate at recruiting and fiscal disadvantages, and yet, the top half of the MWC is better than many of the already advantaged; 3) The BCS issue is one of fairness first, competitiveness second. Don't blow off a man's foot, then blame him for bleeding instead of dancing. If the NCAA's Division I-A criteria are met, why should a non-BCS school have to ‘prove the point that it deserves to be included’?”
"This is a little bit like minor-league baseball trying to push its way up into the World Series.”
“ I have noticed
one particular error (or distortion of fact) continually popping up in
newspaper coverage of the BCS debate. Many reporters, as did this columnist
with the Modesto (Calif.) Bee, suggest that non-BCS universities have
an abysmal record in major bowls over the 20 years prior to the creation
of the BCS system in 1998.
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