THE COLLEGE BOWL DEBACLE—2010

(And Why It’s Getting Worse)

By Douglas daBoone Johnson

Doug Johnson is a screenwriter and author. He welcomes feedback to
this article, and hopes that people will pass it on:
doug@snowshoepublishing.com or 415-290-5322

(Thanks to key sport writers, who chose to remain unmentioned, for
helping me write this article.)

Sports Illustrated magazine recently explored the benefits of a
college football play-off system, and good points were made. They
implied that the issue is about money, however, and I disagree. The
general football public needs to understand that the BCS system, and
the ranking and bowl games they dictate, are tools for established
college football powers. In my opinion, the general college football
public needs to grasp this harsh reality, and challenge these
saboteurs of the game. Until they do, we will all suffer with the
kinds of bowls they’ve given us this year. More so, teams who deserve
a shot at the national spotlight will continue to be overlooked by the
long-established contingency that uses rankings and the BCS to promote
their conferences and their teams.

The game of college football is played by teams who are established as
prominent powers, and those who are not. Unfortunately, the
established teams and conferences in power are an unfathomably
pretentious lot who have learned how to manipulate the system to keep
the uneducated college football nations from gaining notoriety or
prestige. Worse yet, because they remain three-steps ahead of the
field, the situation will go downhill, if that’s at all possible given
this year’s disastrous bowl match-ups.

It is hard to fathom the depth of money and power influencing college
football. In cities like Eugene, Boise, and Salt Lake, we just don’t
have the history of national strength that an Ann Arbor or South Bend
regime has. Time and again it has been explained to me that when
established college football powers play, entire towns shut down. One
of my SEC friends likes to razz me about a high school football game
he drove by in Montana.

"There were more people on the sidelines," he scoffs, "than there were
on the field."

His point was clear, "We (Western schools) don’t take our football
seriously enough to garner respect."

Over the years, the old guard of college football has adapted to allow
new powers onto its fickle radar screen. In 1990, for example, ACC
power Miami was still considered by some, to be relatively new to the
scene. Case in point, Notre Dame fans at my workplace were insulted
that Miami was even allowed to play them. What did this upstart school
know about football? While the burgeoning ACC had already climbed to
power in the minds of ACC people in particular, it wasn’t being
acknowledged just yet by the establishment. In fact, if you had the
ill form to secretly root against a Michigan or a Notre Dame, you
needed to keep it to yourself.

Ultimate power corrupts and the bastions of college football have had
it for a long time, and they’ve no intention of letting go. Your
average Western football fan needs to understand what they are up
against. We are assumed to be babies on the scene—doormats whose sole
purpose is to honor and exonerate the established powers. We also fail
to understand that alums from major established college football
powers will go to any length not just to put their programs in the
spotlight, but to manipulate the system to support teams from their
conference, their state, and ultimately, established powers from their
region. Meanwhile, the harsh reality the established powers have faced
in recent years is that college football is a game of passion and
energy. Add a purpose to that, (like getting even for being deemed
inferior by pompous teams), and you motivate teams like Utah and Boise
State enough to topple college football icons like Oklahoma and
Alabama.

And yes, while such things have happened, I wasn’t the least bit
surprised when I asked a handful of born and raised SEC fanatics if
they recalled that Alabama and Utah had played in the Sugar Bowl in
2009. All they remembered was that Florida had played Alabama that
year, and that while it was close, Florida had won the national
championship. While many a Fighting Ute might be surprised to hear of
such selective memory, this, for me, is an example of how the
established powers think. We don’t exist. And when we beat them, we
still don’t exist. They block it out. Likewise, you’d be hard-pressed
to find someone in the BIG 12 who remembers Oklahoma’s record-breaking
season being stopped short when Boise State thumped them and Adrian
Peterson in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. This fantastic game was considered a
fluke and instantly forgotten by established college football powers
everywhere.

A protocol from such losses, however, has apparently been set. As I’ve
been told, it’s assumed that SEC teams have nothing to gain when
playing po-dunk schools, out of conference. If the SEC or other
prominent power wins, they were supposed to, but if they lose, it
becomes a big deal. The latest method for dealing with threatening
upstart teams, is clearly, to make them play each other.

Despite the number of fans and the dramatic enthusiasm within say, a
Ute or Bronco Nation, these upstart powers are relatively uninformed.
They assume that while the BCS rankings are biased, they are remotely
fair. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be more wrong in regard to the
want-on manipulation that happens to occur.

I wouldn’t know about the SEC nation, had I not moved to SEC country
in 1990. I stepped off the plan and was ordered to pick a side:
Seminoles or Gators. From there I was allowed access to the inner
circle where a man who’d been in the Gator band was soon prosecuted
for writing a five-figure check for the team. Beyond that, the fever
for football was incalculable as everyone plotted the teams that
should be allowed to play, and the po-dunk schools, as they referred
to them, who must be kept out.

In short, I learned that there’s a reason that Utah leap-frogged to
number 5 in the BCS polls this year, while SEC teams like LSU and
established darlings like Oklahoma leap-frogged to number 1. The BCS
rankings, I’m certain, are merely a tool used by established powers to
maintain what is. Utah went to number 5 because they were being
aligned to play red hot Western teams like Boise State or Stanford.
Allowing other patsies to rank would protect their established regimes
from these upstarts. In the 2010 Bowl Match-ups, established
powerhouses were protected from upstart and consequently,
highly-motivated teams, like never before. It was assumed by the
established football nations that such lesser teams should not be
allowed on the same field as a team that’s worked so hard and done so
much for decades or more. So no, BCS rankings are far from random.
While the computer favors conferences like the SEC, who were notably
weak this year, the BCS rankings are controlled by the old-guard who
want only old-guard teams playing each other, particularly in the
National Championship. This makes sense to them because they are the
toughest conference, they have to play each other, and in their
opinion, nobody else should really be considered.

If the established and remarkably united guard were to stop their
manipulation at the BCS Bowls, I wouldn’t be terribly concerned. What
they do however, is manipulate every single bowl so that their
supported and established college powers don’t have to play upstarts,
and the result is a series of bowl match-ups that are lame beyond
belief, as brothers in the effort to earn respect for their
up-and-coming teams are pitted against one another until the public
gets the least interesting college bowls imaginable.

Every year a few acceptable match-ups actually happen. They are
mathematically unavoidable, to some degree, and this year, due to the
uncharacteristic weakness of the SEC and of Eastern powerhouse teams
in general, we succeeded in getting one, that’s right, one interesting
game: Oregon versus Auburn. There was simply no denying this game
after so many SEC teams were raised to the top, and they continued to
lose. Had Alabama not lost twice, however, I can assure you that they
would be in the National Championship against Auburn, and complain as
they might, Duck nation would have been in a lesser bowl.

The other bowl match-ups are boring, by the way, because in a sense,
they’ve already happened. Boise State already played and beat Virginia
Tech in front of a raucous hometown crowd in weather that was humid
enough to cook the rawhide off a horse. And so, because The Hokies
were already soiled by a Western upstart wannabe, they have a fire in
their belly from a year of razzing from the established powers, so
they are a natural to throw at Stanford. Also, Virginia Tech is on a
red hot 9-game run as well, so the timing’s good to correct the score
against a relative newbie. A similar situation exists with Wisconsin.
While they’ve been renting condos in South Florida for recruiting and
building their program for decades, they still have little respect on
the national scene. So tweak the BCS rankings and throw them into an
eternal pit of obscurity by matching them up against fellow upstart
TCU in a game that nobody will remember.

Again, the public believes that these bowls are somewhat random, but
they fail to consider that in every case, bowl match-up’s are in part,
a result of the BCS rankings, which are a chess game being played by
established football powers to keep the established regimes on top,
and to keep upstarts away from their established college football
darlings.

More on this year’s manipulated and orchestrated bowl match-up’s:

Utah vs. Boise State: Utah has the top bowl win-streak in the country
at 9, and the established college powers are ready to see this thorn
in their side disappear. Neither team will want to be on the field
against one another, playing their brother in the battle for college
football respect. Passes will be dropped, motivation will be low, but
Boise State will win.

Arizona vs. Oklahoma State: Arizona has lost four straight games.
Oklahoma State has long been the red-headed step-child of the Big 12,
and will be sent to the PAC 12 next year. So send them after Arizona,
and make the PAC 10 look bad without risking a team that the
established powers care about.

Missouri vs. Louiville: A patsy has been found to assure an SEC win.

Tennessee vs. North Carolina: Again, this one’s about manufacturing an
SEC win and improving their paltry bowl record over the past few
years.

Georgia vs. University of Central Florida: UCF is the most overrated
10 win team in the country. Again, this is a hand-picked SEC moral
booster to improve their plummeting bowl standings.

FSU vs. South Carolina: Why keep these two SEC teams off the chopping
block? Because they’d lose against any top twenty team dying to
challenge the pretentious SEC stigma as the vastly superior college
football conference.

Florida vs. Penn State, Miami vs. Notre Dame, Michigan State vs.
Alabama, Arkansas vs. Ohio State, Pittsburgh vs. SEC darling Kentucky,
LSU vs. Texas A& M, all hand-picked match-ups between established
regimes that nobody West of the Mississippi, or anywhere, could
possibly care about.

U-Conn vs. Oklahoma: U-Conn survived a 3-way tie and became the
surprise shoe-in for their first bowl in school history. Pitt them
against Oklahoma, who will blow them out, and they’ll never be heard
from again.

Nevada vs. Boston College: The perfect BCS pick for upstart Nevada is
fellow wannabe team Boston College. Boston College has a reputation as
a giant killer in bowl games and yet, nobody really cares about them
in the East. (BC is the last team to beat Boise State in a bowl, and
thus, they are proven.)

Finally, in an effort to further taint the burgeoning PAC 10 bowl
record of recent years, Washington Huskies vs. Nebraska: Nebraska
obviously has Washington’s number, as it beat them by 40 points
earlier this year. The SEC wants badly to see a replay of the
Washington Huskies, a team from the PAC 10—an upstart conference they
are sick of hearing about, take another certain beating.

Again, nobody has the slightest interest in any of these games, and we
all lose. There is no conference rivalry, no unestablished teams
looking to gain respect against established teams. Established teams
are pit against each other and, that’s right, there’s nothing to lose
in terms of prestige for teams or conferences. Would all of these
established powers be blown out by a hungry team like Boise State? I
think they would. Is it going to happen? Not until we get a college
play-off.

A final note to the old guard of football: It’s convenient to make
claims of greatness for your teams and conferences, and keep the
computer on your side, when you won’t pursue bowl bids against
allegedly inferior teams come bowl time. The obvious result is that
nothing gets proven or disproven, and the college football hungry
public doesn’t get to see the games they are dying to see. That said,
during the 2011 season, be a sport, please? And if you continue in the
fashion you have, I can assure you, your toys will be taken away