Berry Tramel, Sports columnist
College football and the BCS: It’s a Utah pity party in nation’s capital
College football: BCS is a friend to Mountain West
Berry Tramel
Comments 
44
Published: July 8, 2009
Sometimes, you don’t know who your friends are.
In the last five years, four mid-major college football teams, squadrons on the outside of college football’s cartel, have played in BCS bowls.
Utah in the 2009 Sugar and 2005 Fiesta.
Hawaii in the 2008 Sugar.
Boise State in the 2007 Fiesta.
Utah quarterback Brian Johnson kisses his Sugar Bowl MVP trophy after the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009. Utah defeated Alabama 31-17. AP PHOTO
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In the 54 seasons before 2004, four mid-majors made BCS bowls or the high-paying, New Year’s Day bowls that eventually formed the
Bowl Championship Series: Air Force in the 1959 Cotton and 1971 Sugar,
Wyoming in the 1968 Sugar and
Louisville in the 1991 Fiesta.
So tell me again why on Tuesday a
Mountain West Conference lawyer sat on
Capitol Hill and did what so many lawyers before him have done. Asked Congress to investigate what he believes is an antitrust violation.
Never mind that Congress couldn’t get to the bottom of a purse-snatching on Mayberry’s Main Street.
Why would the Mountain West try to take down the BCS? The BCS has been good to the Mountain West and the
Western Athletic Conference. The BCS is the friend of the Utahs and
Brigham Youngs and
Fresno States.
The BCS did more in half a decade for the profile and standing of the mid-majors than any single coach, player, school or system did in the half century before, with the exception of BYU coaching legend
LaVell Edwards.
The testimony Tuesday in
Washington was all show.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) gaveled the Senate Judiciary subcommittee to order but quickly left.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) stayed a couple of minutes. That left only one senator, Utah
Republican Orrin Hatch, to hear witnesses.
A lawyer for each side debated whether the BCS breaks the
Sherman Antitrust Act, then school leaders for each side,
Nebraska chancellor
Harvey Perlman and Utah president
Michael Young, offered their takes.
When
the U.S. House staged a similar hearing in May, three committee members appeared. We all have asked the question, doesn’t Congress have better things to do? The answer obviously is yes, judging by the attendance at the subcommittee hearings.
This was a Utah pity party, nothing more. I’m a longtime supporter of the Mountain West Conference. I advocate an automatic BCS berth for the Mountain West, and I annually rip the
NCAA basketball committee for short-changing the mid-majors.
I’m not even anti-playoff, so long as it’s an 11-team playoff that includes all the conference champions. But Congress can’t fix anything, and the Mountain West has limited credibility in this case.
True story from a BCS insider: Last December, all 11 leagues in Division I-A voted for the new BCS/
ESPN contract that goes into effect for the 2010 season. BCS and ESPN officials then huddled for four days to iron out details of the already-accepted agreement.
But when the completed contract was ready to sign, the Mountain West balked. What happened in those four days?
Utah upset
Alabama in the
Sugar Bowl and completed a perfect season.
We did not need Utah to beat Alabama to know mid-majors were capable. Boise State proved that against
Oklahoma. If ‘Bama had defeated Utah, no way is Orrin Hatch calling for Congressional hearings. No way is the Mountain West still declining to sign the new BCS contract.
The deadline for the new deal is Thursday. If conferences don’t sign by then, they are not included. Ineligible for BCS bowls, ineligible for BCS payouts (the mid-majors shared $19.3 million from the BCS last season, which when divided is far less than what the
Big 12 or
SEC reaped but still isn’t chump change).
BCS spokesman
Bill Hancock said ESPN has informed the conferences that its payout won’t change, regardless of whether the Mountain West is involved.
The Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits contracts, combinations or conspiracies designed to reduce competition. Does that sound like the BCS, which has put mid-majors on the national stage?
I know the BCS isn’t fair. Is it fair that some college football programs can’t fill a 40,000-seat stadium, while others have waiting lists for a 100,000-seat coliseum? Is it fair that Southern Cal sits within a 20-mile radius of 100 blue-chippers a year, while the state of Nebraska produces 10 blue-chippers a decade?
The BCS isn’t perfect. It’s a two-team playoff system that also tries to put a little order to the once-chaotic bowl process.
If Utah and Orrin Hatch and the apparently preoccupied
United States Congress want to push hard enough, the BCS could go away.
But college football wouldn’t then run screaming to an expanded playoff system. University presidents do not want a playoff. There is no way they could be clearer on that subject.
Scrap the BCS, and college football simply would resort to its old arrangement of pre-ordained bowl ties, and the Mountain West Conference would lose that one foot in the door. It would lose that friend it has branded an enemy.
Berry Tramel: 405-760-8080; Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1.
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kind. A better NC game this past season would have been
USC vs. Florida. Two great defense's and two great offense's going
head to head. Carroll and Myers are great big game coach's.
"Allan, Utah was undefeated because they played a weak schedule. Podunk U. went undefeated in the Podunk Conference and played a podunk out of conference schedule. Should Podunk U. play for the national championship?"
First, I think we can agree that while the scheduling was not SEC-caliber, it was hardly what people should be considered "weak". Both TCU and BYU were Top-10 teams at various points during the season (TCU finished 7th overall), and Utah beat them. They beat Oregan State 7 days after Oregon State beat USC. They went to Michigan on opening day and beat them. Now, again, Michigan was not a good team last year, but a home opener in the Big House is a tough environment for anyone. Yes, their SOS was hurt by UNLV, UNM, Wyoming, and SDSU, but how is that any different than Texas playing UTEP, Florida Atlantic, and Rice?
Essentially, the argument you are making is "In order to make the national championship game, you have to be in one of the BCS conferences", which is by definition Anti-Trust, since you are reducing the competition of 1-A football from 11 conferences to 6.
"Bottom line, the only thing that may even be slightly illegal and under the purvey of Congress is the claim by the BCS or any of its members or sponsors as it being a National Championship, which I don't ever recall seeing. They judiciously call it the BCS Championship game which it most certainly is."
False. Last year it's official title with sponsorship was the "FedEx BCS National Championship Game", as can be referenced at their website: http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/schedule
Bottom line, the only thing that may even be slightly illegal and under the purvey of Congress is the claim by the BCS or any of its members or sponsors as it being a National Championship, which I don't ever recall seeing. They judiciously call it the BCS Championship game which it most certainly is. The BCS is basically a super conference comprised of six conferences, the television networks and the major bowl games whose goal is to match the two highest ranked teams based on a predetermined criteria. Anything that the BCS affiliated conferences give to teams outside the six, is actually a favor and totally unnecessary. For the feds to come in and make some determination otherwise (by legislation, executive action or through the courts) is seriously out of bounds. Now is the BCS totally fair to all division 1A teams? No but it's also not totally fair that if I open up a convenience store that I don't get the same wholesale price for a case of Doritos that Wal-Mart does. Size, power and reputation do matter and if it didn't then the Sun-Belt would have the same television contract as the SEC.
"The BCS is working. It matches the top two ranked teams (Utah had a weaker schedule than either OU or Florida, thus their lower ranking.) in a national championship game"
OU and Florida also both had a loss (and Florida's loss was to a team that wasn't altogether that great in the first place). Utah did not. Strength of Schedule would be relevant if their records were identical, but they were not. Utah had a better record. Period.
"he old system that aligned conferences with certain bowls rarely achieved #1 vs #2. The BCS is a huge improvement."
Segregation was a huge improvement over slavery, that doesn't mean segregation was just. Progress does not mean that we should be satisfied, it merely means that things aren't as bad as they were before. No argument there, but that doesn't mean that we can't argue it should be improved further.
[quote]Is the BCS perfect? No, but neither would a playoff system that would also exclude teams.[/quote]
True, but at least that exclusion would be who is 8th or 9th, or 16th and 17th. That's far less controversial than what we have right now, where the debate is who is 2nd and 3rd, because the 3rd place team has no chance of becoming National Champion.
"It would also damage the significance of the bowls and their ability to offer lucrative compensation to the conferences. "
The process to determine a national championship should not be dependent on how lucrative the process is for the larger teams, it should be about choosing the most accurate method to determine who the best team in the nation is. The simple fact is that a tournament is a more accurate method to decide such qualities than one round of games.
-You reference Harvey Perlman, who is not only the chancellor of Nebraska, he's the President of the BCS. Harvey Perlman's take was? It's classic. A Senator asked him if the BCS is fair, and he said it was because every team has an opportunity to play their way to the National Title. When asked what more Utah could have done, he flat out said "Play Nebraska's schedule". Nebraska's OOC schedule last year was Western Michigan, San Jose State, NMSU, and V-Tech. That means that Nebraska's schedule was strengthened by being in the Big 12. So, basically, when asked what Utah could have done, the President of the BCS flat out said "You need to be in the Big 12 to reach the National Title".
-Your stats on who has reached current-BCS / New years day games is wrong. TCU made the Cotton Bowl in '59 (they played Air Force, which you listed), as did Houston in 77, BYU in 97 (for the 96 season, the year before the BCS was started) and SMU in 66 and 82 (when theyt finished second in the nation in 1982, and went to major bowl games for something like 4 years straight when they were the Pony Express in the mid-1980's.) BYU went to the Fiesta Bowl in '74 and Wyoming did in '76. Navy went to the Orange Bowl in '61. That's more than the 4 you listed.
Besides, those bowls had contracts with the "big" conferences at the time, so contractually it was rare when those "mid-major" teams were even ALLOWED to go. It's like saying "The Yankees, despite claiming to be the best, have never won either the National League Penant OR the College World Series". That's because they're ineligible to go. Mid-Majors only became officially eligible for the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange Bowl in the late-1990's, and 6 years later won the Fiesta Bowl.
-You fault the MWC for signing the contract initially (implying that they agreed to the system), but then immediately warn them that if they do not, they'll forfeit the money (which is lower than other conferences make), and it'll get agreed to anyway.
-Speaking of which, do I really need to make an analogy about why your "It's not the same as the other conferences make, but it's good money anyway" is wrong? Equal pay for equal performance?
-You state "If ‘Bama had defeated Utah, no way is Orrin Hatch calling for Congressional hearings." So, if Utah lost, then Utah wouldn't be complaining that they deserved the national title? Get right out of town. If Alabama beat Utah, then Utah was a 1-loss team and it would be easier to swallow that they did not deserve a share of the national title. But Utah DIDN'T lose, and were the only team that can say that. Florida can't, OU can't, and yet both were picked above Utah
All in all a very poor article, one that simultaniously admits that the BCS is unfair, but then tries to justify its existence by suggesting that it's been more than fair to the mid-majors. Horrible.
he has to keep up on the payments on that nice little house in Soonerland
What about all those Houston and SMU teams who made it to the Cotton Bowls over the years and could compete for national titles until the BCS came into existence. Or the Roger Staubach Navy team that played in the Cotton Bowl?
The BCS is not the friend of mid-majors.
Their "speaking up" has nothing to do with wanting a better system. It merely is them crying about not being national champs that year.
If you dont want whining, repeat after me, PLAY OFF. Stands on it own, Make 16 conf. equal in # of teams, play 2 non conf, all conf, and take top two from each, conf, and go...