(Note: I published this a couple of weeks ago, before the bowls were announced. Contrary to popular opinion, the BCS made the Fiesta Bowl watchable (1) by not drawing Iowa to it, and (2) by pitting the BCS busters against themselves)
And it was horrible. Utterly and unbelievably horrible.
What was obvious from the farthest bleacher seat back was that one team executed far better than another, and that team was draped in Dodger blue and an air traffic controller orange. The other team, to put it mildly, tried. It was shaded with tints of grey, which is the very color of trying. And in college football, you know what happens when you try – not much.
Nevada went deep into a playbook that wasn’t very deep. They ran scripted runs up the gut, zone reads with a lanky yet unwieldy quarterback, and shot numerous frowns toward a sideline that in turn shot back lost expressions with a hint of desperation. It didn’t matter how bad the Broncos were, the Wolf Pack were worse, and Nevada’s undefeated record in conference play suddenly underscored a larger problem in a college football landscape muddied with computers and MIT’s latest whiz-kids. The problem was this: it’s not that the BCS is unfair. It’s how the BCS is unfair. And it is unfair – to those within its bounds.
As the rankings stand today, three teams stand atop the college football world as the proclaimed indomitables – Florida, Alabama and Texas. This shouldn’t come as a surprise – Florida won the national championship last year, returned most of its players, and has a specimen in Tim Tebow, who is unquestionably a game-breaker. Alabama and Texas, looking to break Florida’s streak of dominance, consistently recruit at a top tier level and their efforts on the field reflect as much against quality competition. But behind these three teams lie three other teams - TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State – who have had an equal amount of success in what most consider lesser leagues. Less talent, less competition, less respect, is the running idea (or prejudice, depending on where you stand).
To most who criticize the BCS, this is their reason. The respect for these next tier teams isn’t as earned as it is for the top three. And many pundits like to point out that a team like TCU plays an infinitely tougher slate than a team like Texas, who more or less, feeds off a down Big 12, where the closest game it has is against a 6-5 Oklahoma squad which has lost out of conference twice. Better schedule, better results, better team, right?
In three words, no one knows.
But what we do know is that teams trend in college football. That is to say, no team is ever the same throughout the season – some get better, some worse, and some (like Florida State) get better and worse. You can argue that the Big 12 may be down a certain year. Oklahoma suddenly lacks willpower, Nebraska can’t move the ball, and the top crop isn’t what it used to be, but Texas having narrow escapes like 16-13 against a suddenly game Sooner squad suggests that games are still being played in the league, regardless of how a conference is trending.
Where trending becomes irrelevant, however, was on display last night in Boise, Idaho, behind a headset, a little lost in translation. His name is Chris Ault, and he’s a damn good coach with hall of fame credentials, but he is also 63 years old and coaches the Nevada Wolf Pack. And he was getting out-coached by a younger, more focused Chris Petersen (who is 45). Ault is part of an “aging” trend in the Western Athletic Conference. Dick Tomey is 71 and coaches the San Jose Spartans; Greg McMackin is 64 and coaches the Hawaii Warriors; Pat Hill is 57 and coaches the Fresno State Bulldogs; and Rob Akey of Idaho and DeWayne Walker of New Mexico State, both much younger, are in their first years of coaching at their respective schools. To put it short, the majority of coaches in the conference have been transitional coaches, either past their primes or recycled from better leagues and distributed to a smaller one. And because of this turnover from job to job, there is undeniably a product on the field that does not help to accredit a BCS conference.
And yet the BCS, for all its foibles in the social scene, allows for trending amongst college teams to become irrelevant, in turn allowing for poorer football and weaker scheduling. It allows for teams, as poor as Boise, to schedule essentially one-game seasons. The BCS has become the rich kid in class who doesn’t turn in his homework and isn’t as popular as he thinks. He’s spoiled, has lost friends, and is about to lose more. Oregon’s not scheduling Boise State anymore. Why would it? It’s not about losing the game – it’s about losing positioning in the BCS for playing a tough game on the road. And why would USC or Oklahoma or Ohio State schedule on the road in tough environments? The thinking behind a typical human voter is simple and yet stupid: you lose, you drop.
Where is the impetus for a good game? Perhaps the computers have it right and not the people? Is it possible?
It can be (and it should be) argued that the impetus is probably lost in those three teams ranked four through six. As the media swoons to re-embrace these saccharinely sweet, Disney-inducing underdogs, it’s forgetting how much these teams are (at the present) enervating college football, engendering more BCS karma, not helping it. It’s shouting at Pete Carroll to stop playing Ohio State, to not give us any more drama at the last possible second. It’s telling Oklahoma that its prospects would best be served walloping on Creighton at home when nobody is watching. It’s rewarding weaker teams for lesser slates and diminishing better teams for tougher ones. In a word, it’s absurd.
And it’s the reason the BCS was brought into existence. To prevent bad games from being scheduled. But the mouse has had a cookie (read, Oklahoma-Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago), and now it wants a glass of milk. For the sanity of the system, BCS, cut back the at-large bids to two and to put the milk back in the fridge. Draw the line somewhere, or else suffer the consequences of watching Boise State vs. Iowa in what might be the most unwatched Fiesta Bowl in history.
For the love of football, BCS – be more like your old intransigent self. Demand perfection, snub it when you don’t see it, and screw the hapless. You’re a bastard, to be sure, but damn it if the game doesn’t need you now more than ever.
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