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C-USA Must Make Its BCS Case on the Field
By
Denny O'Brien
�2001 Bonesville.net When Tulane kicks off its season at Brigham Young on Saturday, the game carries more than
an ordinary amount of strategic significance in Conference
USA's drive to raise its stature. The contest will have no
bearing on the C-USA title, but for a growing league with aspirations for
BCS inclusion, the Green Wave's match-up with the Mountain West Conference's
marquee team could be the league's first step towards achieving its ultimate
goal.
C-USA has made extraordinary strides since its inception in 1996. It has
grown dynamically from six teams to ten, with another � South Florida � set
to join in 2003.
Gone are the days when C-USA rivals fought for the rights to the league's
lone bowl tie-in � the AXA Liberty Bowl. Now, four members are
guaranteed post-season trips, not a bad holiday haul for a league entering its sixth
campaign.
Television exposure is another indicator that C-USA continues to upgrade its
presence on the college football landscape. After
years of hiding on Fox Sports Net,
fans of the league's schools will now find their teams prominently featured on
Disney's ESPN and ESPN2 cable giants, including a number of contests slated for weeknights.
Still, the TV and conference power brokers who rule the big business aspects
of college football have managed to sequester the BCS mega-millions in their
Cartel's vaults, away from the clutches of ambitious and perhaps
deserving leagues like C-USA and the MWC. The task remains for the league to raise the ceiling under which it
currently resides.
Under the current four-bowl BCS system, which promises slots to champions of
the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East,
Pac-10, and SEC, plus two berths for at-large teams or Notre Dame, the
likelihood of a non-Cartel member receiving an invitation to the big party
could be equated to the probability of a tropical heat wave enveloping
Antarctica.
That being the case, the Liberty Bowl has become proactive for the C-USA and
MWC
cause by pitching to become the fifth BCS
destination. With strong backing from financier AXA, the Memphis game could
make a strong case for becoming Big Bowl No. 5, when and if the BCS fraternity decides to grow.
On the other hand, another BCS bowl may guarantee nothing for ECU, Louisville, Southern
Miss and their brethren or for their MWC counterparts. The so-called BCS equity leagues, which might more
appropriately be labeled the Country Club Six, are just
as apt to view it as an opportunity to get a second or third slice of the
greenbacks pie as they are to invite an outsider
to the extravaganza. When push comes to shove, money talks.
But so does winning.
For the time being, the coaches and administrators of C-USA and the MWC are left pleading their
cases. The cries have gotten so monotonous
of late that fans can't be blamed for entering a semi-comatose state when the subject
arises.
There's another approach, however, that might prove more effective in
shaking up the power structure than hand-wringing and back room politics.
Perhaps C-USA and the MWC should concentrate on breaking the BCS door down
by getting better. As history suggests,
a quality product will sell itself.
C-USA's teams, in particular, have already made quite a name for themselves
as slayers of opponents with BCS ties.
Cincinnati over Wisconsin; ECU over Miami, Syracuse, Texas Tech and West
Virginia; Southern Miss over Alabama and Oklahoma State; and UAB over LSU are notable
examples over the last two seasons. A by-product of the
so-called upsets is that C-USA has become a collection of teams that nobody wants to play.
Simply put, Tennessee proves nothing by annually beating Memphis by a field goal. Nebraska gained little
with its seven-point victory over Southern Miss in '99.
For C-USA to get where it needs to be in the college football food chain,
more of the narrow losses must become
wins. Victories over BCS-affiliated schools should
become the rule, not the exception.
This fall, C-USA is presented with some intriguing opportunities
schedule-wise.
With its weakest non-conference slate in years, East Carolina's mission is
clear. With games at home against Wake and William
& Mary, followed by road trips to Syracuse and UNC-Chapel Hill, a
clean sweep of the non-league foes is not an unrealistic scenario.
Louisville has a trio of pivotal games. The Cardinals figure to once
again tame Kentucky, while wins over MWC power
Colorado State and Big 10 member Illinois would do wonders for the league's
power ranking. The Cardinals return enough talent to do
just that.
Historically, Southern Miss has loaded its schedule with tradition-filled
programs, and this year is no different. Though Alabama
and Penn State both disappointed last season, wins over the Tide and Nittany
Lions would loom large. Some observers believe the
Golden Eagles are in for a down year, but wins over two of the nation's
most storied football schools would nullify that prediction.
Other schools, too, will have the opportunity to carry the C-USA torch,
though victory in some cases seems nearly impossible. TCU,
for example, has little chance of staying within 30 of Nebraska. UAB figures
to take quite a pounding from ACC kingpin Florida State -- then again,
so does everybody else in the ACC not named Georgia Tech.
But there are other winnable marquee games for C-USA. Tulane-LSU,
UAB-Pittsburgh, TCU-Marshall, and Memphis-Mississippi State come to mind. More wins than losses must result from those
encounters
if C-USA expects to begin exerting meaningful pressure against the political
and market forces that have until now, for all practical purposes, excluded
it from the BCS.
Winning most of those games will translate into a shrill cries from the fans
and the media of "That's not fair!" regarding the current BCS setup.
"Steve Spurrier said it best," Steve Logan once noted. "The most uneven playing
field in all of athletics is college football."
That may be true, but a few more wins over quality out-of-conference
opponents could go a long way toward leveling things for C-USA.
And a Tulane victory over BYU would be a pretty nice start.
Send an e-mail message to Denny O'Brien.
02/23/2007 01:41:10 AM
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