How to avoid the dud bowl

Sporting News, The, Nov 29, 1993 by Dave Kindred

Lo these many moons I have advocated a national championship college football tournament. In the process, I have hurled adjectives of many odors and colors at college football's high muckety-mucks and preposterous panjandrums. No reason to quit now. More reason than ever, in fact, to ask if any of those pigskin poohbahs has noticed how ridiculous the idea of bowl games has become.

Look at the mess. Boston College lost to Northwestern. Now the Bostons have beaten Notre Dame. And this just after Notre Dame had beaten Florida State in The Game of the Century LIX. My, my, my. Boston College's victory must have set the Coalitionists to twitching from ear lobe to little toenail. The Coalitionists are everyone who is anyone in college football except for the Big Ten and Pac-10 people, who answer only to the Rose Bowl's cashiers.

The Coalitionists decided a couple years ago they would take politicking out of the bowl-selection process. So they decided the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the combined writers' and coaches' polls would meet in one of the bowl games somewhere. That way the Coalitionists would create a real national champion.

It's dangerous to assume anything in sports. Evander Holyfield beats Riddick Bowe. LSU beats Alabama. The Phillies somehow beat Atlanta (and to this day no one knows how the Phillies did it because it is impossible, inexplicable, beyond human understanding and, come to think about it, was probably staged in a warehouse in New Jersey).

Despite that, let's be dangerous here for a second. Let's say Nebraska's cornfeds go undefeated. Let's say West Virginia's hillfolk go undefeated. This would be a really big problem for the Coalitionists because if the pollsters went for undefeated teams, Nebraska and West Virginia would be Nos. 1 and 2.

Think about that.

Nebraska and West Virginia.

For the whole national ball of marbles in the Dud Bowl.

There's a country music line. "I'm so down," the groaning moaner sang, "I don't know whether to kill myself or go bowling."

But don't worry. Nebraska-West Virginia won't happen. Except for the occasional family member, nobody wants to see those teams. So the pollboys will make sure that the glamour teams are up there.

Florida State will get another chance. Maybe Tennessee. Maybe even the Notre Damers, because, after all, they've lost only one, and sponsors rather admire the business possibilities of any game involving Notre Dame.

What's happening here is exactly what the Coalitionists banded together to prevent. The idea was to take the guesswork out of the bowl system. Remember 1990, when Virginia went 7-0, became No. 1, took a Sugar Bowl invitation and promptly lost its next four games? Whoa, Nellie, nobody liked that one.

So the Coalitionists decided to get the two top teams together and let the rest of the chips fall into bowls wherever they may.

Fine, if you know who the top two teams are. But with Notre Dame and Florida State beaten, with only dullards, duds and invisible Auburn winning all their games, the Coalitionists have a mighty argument about to break out.

No matter what the polls show, nobody in this gang of five or seven teams -- throw Tennessee in there, maybe Texas A&M, maybe Florida if it can beat Florida State this week -- absolutely nobody is going to believe they didn't deserve a shot at the national championship.

And if everybody loses, that leaves probationally challenged Auburn as the only undefeated team. Messy.

Yes, the Coalition is in mighty messy disarray. Which is good, very good, because the messier the Coalition gets, the more likely it is that college football will create a national championship tournament.

The only reason there isn't one now is that football coaches and athletic directors run the business. There is no more conservative group of people on this planet. The adjective Neanderthalian comes to mind.

Some of these people have seen changes in their time and been opposed to every one of them. They would have voted against fire if they had been there that day.

The arguments most often heard against a tournament are so absurd as to be self-defeating.

"It's too much emphasis on football" And 100,000-seat stadiums and high-dollar boosters and thousand-piece marching bands and national-television contracts and Touchdown Jesus aren't evidence of that already?

"Kids will miss class." After 100 years of not caring, now they care?

"The season will be too long." Maybe it would be 15 games. Big deal. High school teams chasing their state championships play 15 games. Anyway, only two teams would play that many. Everyone else could go study.

"This way everyone can argue about who's No. I and that creates interest." So why not do it in basketball? "Coaches say it would add to the pressure on them." Who cares?

"It will destroy bowl games." Not if you take one minute to figure out a tournament schedule, such as ...

Take 16 teams chosen by an NCAA selection committee. Play four games on a Saturday, four on a Sunday. The next weekend, two games each day. The next weekend, one each day. Last, a national championship game. Rotate the games among the traditional bowl sites.