Perry Daily Journal (Perry, Okla.), Vol. 111, No. 244, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 22, 2004 Page: 5 of 15
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POPTS
Perry Daily Journal - Wednesday, December 22, 2004 5
BCS woes could lead to new formats
(KRT) Now you’ve done it. All of the complaining
about the Bowl Championship Series - from talk-ra-
dio chatter to sports-anchor diatribes to the hot glare
of the Senate judiciary committee - has the people
who run major college football fed up.
An NCAA president who chairs the organization’s
powerful board of directors says his brethren are so
stung by the criticism, they have half a mind to toss
the BCS and return to the previous bowl system of
crowning Division I-A football champions.
Kansas chancellor Robert Hemenway said: “Those
(college presidents) who are a little bit disaffected
with this — the BCS seems to be a constant source of
irritation. ... A lot of presidents and chancellors are
saying, Is this really worth it?’ “I think many of them
are willing to say Let’s play 12 games, let’s have our
(conference) championship game and a bowl. The
bowl system has frankly worked pretty well from the
universities' point of view. Kind of go back to a sim-
pler time.”
Before the presidents scout out the nearest
dumpster, they’re contractually obligated to the BCS
format through the 2009 season. But they apparently
feel the need to vent after the controversies of the
last two seasons.
Many of the current 28 bowls could be unaffected
by a playoff becausethey never help determine the
champion. Their status as the NIT of football would
be more formalized.
But even some current bowl sites wouldn’t jump at
the chance to be part of a playoff bracket. Dan Petty,
a veteran volunteer with the SBC Cotton Bowl Clas-
sic, noted that an early-bracket game would result
in teams and fans spending only a night or two in
Dallas rather than the typical week or so. That would
mean no team trips to a Mavericks game or visits to
local hospitals. No $30 million economic impact.
“You wouldn’t have any of the entertainment or
what I call the bowl experience,” said Petty, chair-
man of this year’s team selection committee. “Sec-
ondly, the (year-round) volunteer base probably would
not elect to work that game since they really didn’t
have any stake in it.”
Petty said even a plus-one format with a national-
title game in Dallas about a week after the Cotton
Bowl could force many local fans to decide which
game to attend.
The answer could be known after the 2006 season.
Under the new five-game BCS format going in that
year, Phoenix will host the national-championship
Last year, the BCS couldn’t prevent a split national game a week after the Fiesta Bowl. The presidents
crown. This year, three undefeated teams from BCS aren’t the only major group fighting a playoff. That
conferences couldn’t fit into the FedEx Orange Bowl disdain is unofficially shared by the coaches. They
title game. Just determining the two at-large BCS find having 28 bowl-winning coaches helps keep them
participants produced its own uproar. “If we’re not collectively employed.
able to deal with post-season football with a little “I was shocked last January when our coaches re-
less acrimony and constant disappointment . . . “ jected the plus-one’,” said Grant Teaff, executive
Hemenway said, not completing the sentence. “I don’t director of the American Football Coaches Associa-
think anybody feels very comfortable about the way tion. “It wasn’t even a close discussion.” The coaches
that people are running up scores, are politicking for would have their say in any playoff construction,
this bowl or that bowl. I think there’s a certain un- Their support was an important factor when the
seemliness about that that bothers people. I know it overtime tie-breaker was implemented in 1996.
bothers presidents a lot ” “We’d be in the middle of it,” Teaff said. The most
One of the directors from a non-BCS conference, important outside factor would be television. Some
Tulane president Scott Cowen, echoed Hemenway’s observers assume TV could force a playoff if it wanted
sentiments. “The level of criticism is fairly war- one. “I don’t think that’s true,” Teaff said. “If there
ranted,” Cowen said. “So you either do it the right was going to be that type of power exhibited by the
way, which involves a playoff, or you go back to where television people - and they have immense power -
there was no pretense that there was somebody that could have manifested itself this year" follow-
(matched together) playing for the national champi- ing last season’s USC-Oklahoma-LSU argument,
onship. You just played the bowls, and the pollsters Mike Aresco, CBS’ senior vice president for sports
ranked 'em however they wanted and we lived with programming, agreed that TV can’t snap its fingers
the controversy. and start a playoff. “And, being in television, I think
“The current situation, quite honestly, is getting a television does want a playoff,” he said. “This is
little untenable right now and making us look like squarely in the presidents’ court.”
we don’t know what we’re doing.” College presidents While’ sports fans might equate a I-A playoff for-
are considered the major opponents to a formal play- mat with the Division I men’s basketball tournament,
off structure, though Cowen pointed out there hasn’t Aresco said, they would be slightly different animals
been a formal survey taken on the subject. They ap- on the TV calendar. A football playoff probably would
pear to oppose anything ranging from a “plus one” coexist with the NFL playoffs while March Madness
showdown following the current bowls or a bracket faces no major competition in sports programming,
that could accommodate from four to 16 teams. “You own the month of March,” Aresco said. “But that
The major concerns commonly mentioned are aca- doesn’t mean (a football playoff) wouldn’t be a valu-
demics and over-commercialization. Hemenway said able property.”
the academic fear is two-fold - interfering with fall- Another outside element could be the federal gov-
semester finals and the start of the spring semester, ernment, which recently brought the subject before
or both. The fall half would seem manageable. It’s the judiciary committee. Tom Osborne, the former
handled by college basketball teams. Hemenway’s longtime Nebraska coach and now congressman, said
own basketball Jayhawks are taking almost two full he vehemently opposes government involvement,
weeks off during finals. “The NCAA can solve its own problems,” he said.
But football playoffs in each of the NCAA’s other “The question is whether the NCAA wants to take
three divisions - I-AA, II and III - continue through charge of (I-A) post-season football or leave it in the
fall finals. Mary Hardin-Baylor played in the Divi- hands of the conferences.” Osborne said the only
sion III final on Saturday - its 15th game of the sea- change he’d make to the BCS system would be to in-
son. The school’s top athletic official said there wasn’t vite the eight best teams and not have automatic bids
an academic meltdown - even with finals taken two for certain conferences.
AP switched from determining its champion before
the bowls to after in the late 1960s. The coaches’ poll
made the same switch in the mid-’70s. National cham-
pionships were almost exclusively decided through
the 1983 season within the four “major” bowls annu-
ally played on New Year’s Day - the Rose, Orange,
Sugar and Cotton - in part because of their affilia-
tions with most of the major conferences.
The ’84 season produced the first of what today
would be called a BCS buster. Brigham Young of the
Western Athletic Conference was ranked No. 1 after
the regular season and was obligated to play in the
Holiday Bowl. BYU beat Michigan and won the na-
tional title. The Fiesta Bowl started the second wave
of New Year’s Day bowls with its 1982 game and pro-
vided a glimpse of an arranged national champion
ship showdown a few years later.
Because of the major bowls’ conference obligations,
the Fiesta was able to match the top two teams of
1986, independents Miami and Penn State, and moved
the game to an exclusive slot on Jan. 2, 1987. Penn
State’s win produced a 25.1 TV rating, still a record
for a college football telecast. National championship
matchmaking got its start with the Bowl Coalition
during the 1992 season and the Bowl Alliance that
followed in 1995.
They included the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls
but lacked the participation of the Rose Bowl and its
two conference champions. The Bowl Championship
Series began with the 1998 season, when the Rose
Bowl joined the mix to bring together all winners of
the so-called BCS conferences.
COMING SOON: THE NEW’ BCS The BCS for
mat was changed last summer to include five games
within the structure of the four host cities. That will
start with the 2006 season, the first of four years on
the new TV contract with Fox.
The yet-unnamed championship game w ill be played
a week after the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta
bowls. While not changing the method of determin-
ing a national champion, it will allow 10 schools to
play in BCS bowls instead of the current eight.
The Fiesta will be the first championship site in
the new rotation, with the January 2007 title game.
It will be followed by the Sugar, Orange and Rose. If
the new system were used this season, here’s what
the schedule probably would look like with Califor-
nia and Georgia earning the two additional berths:
National final in Miami: Southern Cal vs. Oklahoma
Rose Bowl: California vs. Michigan Sugar Bowl: Au-
burn vs. Virginia Tech Orange Bowl: Texas vs. Geor-
gia Fiesta Bowl: Utah vs. Pittsburgh
(c) 2004, The Dallas Morning News.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/
Tribune Information Services.
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weeks ago. For this season, that would mean replacing Big East
“It’s been a slight adjustment," said Ben Shipp, Conference champion Pittsburgh with California.
Mary Hardin-Baylor’s vice president for athletics. Otherwise, the two-time national champion coach op-
“From what we know about Division I in terms of the poses a playoff. “The season is the playoff,” he said,
academic support they already provide, I think it’s a “You lose one game, your chances of (winning the
doable thing as it relates to academics. But academ- national title) are greatly hurt. You lose two. you vir-
ics is always a valid concern as it relates to absences.” tually have no chance.”
University of Texas president Larry Faulkner said ONE PLAYOFF POSSIBILITY If there’s a job in
he’d look at a plus-one model but called anything as college athletics, chances are Chuck Neinas has done
lengthy as the Division III format exploitation. “I’ve it. Worked for the NCAA for 10 years. Was commis-
seen our student-athletes play 14 games, and I can sioner of the Big Eight through most of the 1970s.
tell you that’s the limit as I see it,” Faulkner said. Was the director of the former College Football As-
“What you’re asking those kids to absorb is tremen- sociation when that group assumed control of college
dous.” football TV deals in the mid-‘80s.
Baylor president Robert Sloan said he opposes any He now runs a firm that fills many major college
format that would add more than one game. “This is football coaching vacancies. While running the CFA
college athletics,” he said. “Our primary concern must in the early ’90s, Neinas put together a playoff for-
be the academic calendar.” mat to illustrate how participation and revenue could
Longtime college football figure Chuck Neinas said be maximized. He even produced a 30-minute video
it’s a “fallacious argument” that a bracket would im- of a mock selection show featuring Lee Corso,
pinge on academics. “If it’s scheduled right,” said The details of the plan: Sixteen teams would play
Neinas, who operates Neinas Sports Services out of first-round games hosted by the higher seeds over
Colorado. He said the former College Football Asso- two weekends in early December to avoid conflict-
ciation, which he was president of, put together a ing with any participants’ final exams. (The balance
16-team bracket as an example of what could be done, of the existing bowl field would be free to continue
“We secured academic schedules for at least the to operate, not decreasing the opportunity for teams
CFA membership, of which there were 67 (schools) to experience post-season play.)
at the time,” Neinas said. “A playoff arrangement The quarterfinals would be played on New Year’s
could be done in such manner to miss very little class Day. The semifinals would be played as a double-
time.” header at one site, like the first day of basketball’s
Neinas said class absences are more frequent in Final Four. The championship game would be played
men’s basketball and baseball. He noted that some during the NFL’s open weekend before the Super
East Coast schools that are assigned to basketball’s Bowl.
Division I West Region tournament stay on the road BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP EVOLUTION The As-
if they advance to the second weekend, armed with sociated Press poll of selected sports journalists was
tutors to help the players keep up in the classroom, started in October 1936 to minimize confusion over
Kansas’ Hemenway said the argument regarding the numerous rating systems and champions at the
over-commercialization is less focused: “I know some time. The coaches got into the poll business in 1950
(presidents) feel some of the existing bowls are ex- with what has since been recognized as the second
cessively commercialized. major poll.
They think a Super Bowl kind of environment for
college football is a kind of invitation to even greater
excess.” Tulane’s Cowen said the current system
makes it appear that the presidents want it both ways.
“We want a national championship, but we’re not
willing to do it the way it really should be done,” he
said. “And the reason we don’t want to do it is com-
mercialization. Then we ought to go in the opposite
direction and de-commercialize everything.”
What sets I-A post-season football apart from the
other divisions is the longtime presence of bowls, in
which colleges provide the outside labor for what
began as events dedicated to municipal commerce and
community involvement.
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Brown, Gloria. Perry Daily Journal (Perry, Okla.), Vol. 111, No. 244, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 22, 2004, newspaper, December 22, 2004; Perry, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2260087/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.