The More Things Change…

Throughout my four year book manuscript research project there have been several constants (themes) that have occurred with such alarming regularity that sometimes I wonder if I’m stuck in Bill Murray land, for it seems to me that Groundhog day (college football style) is a reoccurring nightmare.

Since 2004, when Texas and the CFA fraternity campaigned for votes in overcoming Jeff Tedford and the Bears, I have seen the same themes running true for each of the last four seasons.

1) The season starts out every year with a bash the PAC-10 smear campaign, orchestrated by either the Big-12 Conference or the almighty SEC.

If you remember in 2004, the Big-12 Conference lauded the ineptitude of the PAC-10 conference on the defensive side of the ball throughout the season, and praised the BCS for getting it right when Texas Tech beat California in the Holiday Bowl, and Texas beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl that season.

Describing Arizona States comeback win over Purdue in the Sun Bowl as “Saving some face for the PAC-10,” the networks got out of hand a week later when USC and Oklahoma lined up for the BCS national Championship game at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Craig James, the outspoken Texan himself, proclaimed “who knows what’s going on in the PAC-10″ throughout the media hype in the preceding days before the game, and hours prior to the big dance itself, boasted of a Sooner Massacre in the Championship tilt. By halftime, of course, he and John Saunders were singing a different tune as the Trojans were responsible for one of the biggest massacres in BCS history, leading 38-10 before finally mushrooming the score to 55-19. It was, in fact, Men among Boys in that game, except someone forgot to tell the CFA that the wrong team won.

A year later, as Vince Young, Reggie Bush and company were matched up in one of the all-time greatest BCS championship venues, you could almost feel the jealousy and animosity ripping at the seams of those mighty Texas uniforms when USC was given all the hype precluding the match-up. John Saunders jumped right into the fray moments after Vince Young had scampered on a fourth a goal from the five to win the BCS title in the wanning moments by quipping “We knew when USC finally played a legitimate defense, they would lose.”

Of course if you had watched the game, you would laugh at the absurdity of that statement as USC’s defense was so bad that Texas had to come from 16 points down in the final quarter to win, and this after a series of USC blunders on offense opened the door.

I don’t think Pete Carroll’s call on fourth down from midfield inside the final two minutes was a bad call, because had they gained two yards the game was virtually over. I do think that the play of USC’s dynamic Heisman duo - Matt Linert and Reggie Bush - as well as a greedy call by Carroll early in the first quarter, were in fact, the key culprits that tilted the scales of balance in the Horns favor.

It had nothing to do with the Trojan defense, but the CFA fraternity will never cease to take advantage of a 10-year smear campaign that has stigmatized both the PAC-10 and Big-10 as conferences that lack speed on defense.

Last year’s whipping by the Gators over the Buckeye’s does nothing but throw diesel behind the fuel of this flame.

Lost among all the hype was the fact that the SEC actually lost two of the three bowl match-ups with the Big-10. I guess the SEC sunglasses only allow people to see in shades of Orange and Blue.

The CFA fraternity is great at grandstanding, but is nowhere to be found when you throw actual numbers into the fray. Can you say front-runners?

The Texas defense was so stifling in the 2005 Rose Bowl BCS National Championship game that the Men of Troy gained over 500 yards on the night, had a significant advantage in total yards and time of possession, as well as putting up 38 points on the Horns, that the performance was eerily similar to UCLA’s much publicized debacle at Miami in 1998, when the Bruins lost a tough game to a resurgent Hurricane program led by Edgerrin James, who shredded the UCLA defense to the tune of 299 yards rushing and three touchdowns.

Completely missed among all the PAC-10 bashing was that Bruin Quarterback Cade McNown shredded the Hurricane defense to the tune of 515 yards passing and 5 touchdowns, but lost 45-42.

In every situation, the PAC-10 has been repeatedly bashed as a soft conference who can’t play defense. So as you can probably imagine, it was of no surprise when Les Miles sounded off this past July proclaiming the PAC-10 akin to USC and the nine dwarfs. The Trojan road to the championship is obviously less stressing than what the mighty Tigers face on an annual basis. After all, defense reins supreme in the SEC.

2) The PAC-10 has always been a conference that cannibalizes each other, and by the end of the season, we have one or two legitimate title contenders on a national scale, and then we have a complete log jam with the teams located in third through eighth place.

It is a very balanced conference and the rest of the conference is just now finally catching up to the mighty Trojans, which has had more to do with all the coaching turnover in the last decade within the PAC-10 than any other reason of significance.

It wasn’t as if the PAC-10 was that bad, but rather that the Men of Troy were that good, as evidence by the whipping that the Trojans put on all non-PAC-10 teams in the last 5 years. You may begin to understand the irony in all of this as this year, the SEC numbers on defense and well as the log jam within the middle part of their conference looks awfully…PAC-10 like.

But here is the interesting thing.

Have you heard one, single, solitary, comment this year rebuking the SEC as a soft conference who can’t play defense?

Have you heard one, single, solitary, comment this year rebuking the SEC as a soft conference because the teams are log jammed in second through 8th place?

The similarities between the two conferences within the last two years is striking, and if you look across the country, at all of the BCS Conferences, the parity factor is occurring in all the conferences. The game has never been healthier.

3) In the SEC its a balance of power…in the PAC-10 its a conference of mediocrity, and since the Big-East lost its two most prominent CFA members in Virginia Tech and Miami in 2004, the SEC, as well as the media who is obviously drinking from the same Kool-aid trough, has extended the Bash The PAC smear campaign to the Big-East as well.

The problem here is that since the Big-East realignment in 2005, the SEC is 1-7 against the Big-East. Of course you will never hear that reverberated from any media pundits, because it doesn’t sell the superiority of the south, which is the economic heart beat of college football.

4) The former teams who united to form the College Football Association (the traditional powers) are protected in the Poll system. It begins with the hype surrounding the ranking of each recruiting class in February and extends to the initial pre-season poll in August.

The recruiting class rankings, pre-season polls and the weekly performance polls that come on Sunday and Monday every week are almost archaic in evaluating the actual performance level on the field.

If you question this consider that Tennessee, Michigan and Notre Dame are constantly ranked in the Top-10 of the recruiting and pre-season polls. You could add Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma and even UCLA to the mix.

Now, how does UCLA, Tennessee, Michigan and Notre Dame actually perform during the season?

Notre Dame hasn’t won a bowl game in a decade, annually plays a soft schedule playing the bottom feeders of the BCS Conferences as well as the Academies (I swear they must have a Mock Commander in Chief Trophy stowed away somewhere in that archaic stadium of theirs), and when they finally stepped out of the shadow of their past and played even a marginal schedule (in terms of strength) this year, they are 1-9.

Still not convinced? Boise State, Oregon State, TCU, Northwestern, Boston College, Texas Tech and Missouri have a better bowl performance record in the last decade than Notre Dame.

In 2005, Tennessee started 3-3, and was still ranked in the Top-25. That same year, Michigan started 4-2, with weak wins over Notre Dame and the like, yet were still ranked close to the Top-10 for most of the season. This year, Texas is in striking distance of a BCS or upper tier New Years Bowl game and they have played woefully below their potential for much of the season. Compare their performance this year with a team like Kentucky.

Texas is (9-2) while Kentucky is (7-3). Which team is ranked higher? The best team Texas has beaten all year is Oklahoma State, and they struggled mightily to win that one.

Nearly every major media pundit or analyst condemns Kansas because they haven’t played a legit team like Texas this year. Texas should be thanking its lucky stars that they didn’t have to play either Missouri or Kansas this year!

The Texans schedule must have been conceived by their Hawaiian brethren.

5) Every game is a playoff. This is the most convoluted ranking system in the history of mankind and the fact that these cronies try to push the fact that they actually watch the games and know what they are talking about is painstakingly criminal to watch.

If you question the CFA alliance thing I have been touting throughout this blog and soon to be throughout my book project, consider the 2004 season. After the AP Writers and ESPN pulled out from under the BCS process of determining the national championship participants, college football administrators were at a crossroads.

When they had every opportunity to fix the poll process, they imploded inward and created the Harris Poll. And who exactly helped create the Harris Poll? The same two leaders who were behind the College Football Association movement - Chuck Neinas and Vince Dooley.

Now consider that Harris Poll voter Eddie Crowder has significant ties to the CFA with Chuck Neinas and admitted during the mid point of the season that he hadn’t seen a clip of South Florida play all season and if push came to shove he would vote LSU ahead because they have a greater lineage in the game.

6) The polling process quietly positions the elite members of the CFA within striking distance for the final vote to commence on the first week in December. After all the smoke has cleared, and the BCS grandstanding subsides, the controversy will fester through the new year and into the early days of January when the NCAA national convention rolls around, and then the controversy will fade away, flaring up again after intermittent bouts of hibernation occurring on signing day and again in June when the official 100 day countdown to the new season begins, only to see the controversy renew itself, with the same reoccurring themes - Bill Murray take a bow - Ground Hog day continues!

This brings us to the present (2007) with the stretch run ready to commence. Yesterday, I announced my prediction that Oklahoma and LSU will in fact play for the national championship this season.

Throughout the 8-year history of the BCS, there has never…let me repeat - NEVER - been a non-CFA team who participated in the BCS National Championship Game.

NEVER!

With Oregon, Missouri, Kansas, Arizona State and West Virginia lurking, Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, Virginia Tech and the rest of the CFA fraternity are ready to pounce. Look for these teams to suddenly and inexplicably rise in the final weeks of the polls. Georgia, Texas, and Virginia Tech have already began their meteoric rise in the polls.

Let me break it down for you.

The BCS Championship Contenders:

Pat Forde of ESPN, Mark Schlaback of ESPN and Stewart Mandell of Sports Illustrated have come out with articles in the last two days breaking down the remaining contenders and the top stories for this season of parity. The themes behind these stories serve as a microcosm for the same themes I have been harping on in this very article.

Most of the year, Mandell has both raved about the SEC superiority and then at the same time, written articles condemning the flame bashing emails ragging on any cyber board found on the Internet pitting one conference against the next.

If you look at Schlabacks article breaking down the front running teams you confront the same themes I have transposed in this very article. Take the LSU and Oregon examples into consideration.

Schlaback touts LSU’s strength as the top team due to the fact they have played a murderer’s row of a schedule within the confines of the SEC Conference. Claiming that LSU has beaten #9 Virginia Tech, #12 South Carolina, #9 Florida, #17 Auburn and #19 Alabama is certainly impressive…until one looks at the reality of those numbers.

I don’t pay much attention to the rankings, perhaps because I actually put myself in the voters shoes and began the process of performing my own BCS Busters ranking poll. I watched upwards of 15-20 games every Saturday, often times staying up until 3 or 4 AM the next day to try and get my ballot put together. After five weeks I quit the process, not because I didn’t feel competent in performing my duties or dedicated to the process, but because after a five week exhaustive process, I couldn’t reasonably or prudently tell the difference between the top tier teams.

The issue needs to be settled on the field because how can you compare Oklahoma’s loss to Colorado any differently than Oregon’s loss to California, LSU’s loss to Kentucky, or West Virginia’s loss to South Florida against the fact that Kansas has gone undefeated playing a skeptical schedule, which compares quite similarly to The Ohio State and Texas schedules as well.

How do we, the pollsters, put that together in a valid nature without tints of bias in terms of a teams history and tradition in the game?

The answer is you can’t and if you claim you can, you simply haven’t been watching the games this year - Crowder are you listening?

And more importantly, how can we penalize both Kansas and Ohio State when their schedules were made 6 to 8 years ago? In many cases, when comparing similar schedules around the country, the athletic director who scheduled the event is no longer working at that particular institution. The entire polling process is a complete fraud and has been for years, which Mandell alludes to in his article today.

The reality of LSU’s schedule is that Virginia Tech is now ranked 10th, South Carolina is now unranked and will likely finish 6-6, Florida is now ranked 12th, while both Auburn and Alabama have fallen completely out of the Top-25, and yet LSU (since they have been pigeon holed into the top position as early as the final stages of last years bowl games) has been virtually given top billing.

The two best teams on LSU’s schedule are 10th ranked Virginia Tech (8-2), who has lost to the two best teams on their schedule by a combined score of 63-19, and 12th ranked Florida (7-3).

The SEC is constantly described in these words: mighty, strong, juggernaut, murderers row, incredible, speed, powerful, gigantic, titanic and the best conference in the country with unbelievable defenses.

Oregon in the meantime, like most of this year, has been described in the following terms. I will quote Schlabacks article.

1. LSU (9-1, 5-1 SEC)

Pros: The Tigers have already beaten five opponents that were ranked at the time they played: No. 9 Virginia Tech, No. 12 South Carolina, No. 9 Florida, No. 17 Auburn and No. 17 Alabama. LSU already has secured a spot in the Dec. 1 SEC championship game in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome by winning the SEC West and should be an overwhelming favorite against the SEC East winner.

Cons: Unlike Oregon and West Virginia, the Tigers will have to play in a conference championship game. LSU should be a heavy favorite in its last two regular-season games: at Ole Miss on Saturday and against Arkansas on Nov. 23. LSU had to win its share of close games, with four games decided by seven points or fewer. LSU beat the Gators by four points, Auburn by six and Alabama by seven. The Tigers lost to then-No. 17 Kentucky 43-37 on Oct. 13. A 12-point victory over South Carolina and the win over the Crimson Tide aren’t as impressive as they were when the games were played.

2. Oregon (8-1, 5-1 Pac-10)

Pros: The Ducks are as explosive as any team in the country, scoring at least 24 points in each of their nine games. Quarterback Dennis Dixon might now be the Heisman Trophy favorite. The Ducks seemingly have the easiest path among the BCS title contenders in winning out with three unranked opponents left to play. Oregon plays at Arizona on Thursday night, then travels to UCLA on Nov. 24 and hosts rival Oregon State on Dec. 1.

Cons: The three-game finish is hardly daunting and doesn’t give Oregon much of a chance to really make a statement to voters. The Ducks have to win each of those games by a sizable margin. They have beaten only two ranked opponents: 24-17 over No. 12 Southern California and 35-23 over No. 4 Arizona State. They lost to then-No. 6 California 31-24 in Eugene, Ore., on Sept. 9. Oregon has suffered its share of injuries, losing receivers Brian Paysinger and Cameron Colvin and tailback Jeremiah Johnson, but the Ducks have been able to mask those personnel losses so far.

LSU has only beaten two ranked teams all year, because the only rankings that truly matter are those occurring in the final month of November. Even when comparing the ranked teams they have beaten against Oregon’s slate, it doesn’t measure up.

Did you notice the hypocrisy here? LSU can get away with winning by small margins…Oregon on the other hand, even though they have dominated most of their opponents this year by large margins, cannot afford such a luxury.

For Oregon to play in the Championship game they will have to score over 50 points a game and win by at least three touchdown margins in their final three games and even then I wouldn’t count on it. The CFA alliance will once again prove itself to be too big of a hurdle to overcome, and since it will flare its ugly head on the final vote, there isn’t a damn thing that anyone can do about it!

Oregon has actually beaten three ranked teams because Michigan is currently ranked in the BCS Top-25. Oregon has beaten #8 ASU and #11 USC (a Trojan team who through all their injuries, penalties, youth and quarterbacking struggles, is 8 points away from being undefeated and playing arguably in yet another national championship game) and yet Oregon has had the easier road (according to every major media outlet from ESPN, to Sports Illustrated and every major talk radio network in the country).

If Oregon doesn’t win by a sizable margin in the final three weeks they will be overcome by the three teams from the Big-12 as well as LSU.

This is why I predict an Oklahoma - LSU match-up. Whoever wins the season final between Missouri and Kansas will have to get up for yet another huge game within 7 days while Oklahoma has virtually had the last three weeks to tune up for the game.

Oregon will not win by large margins in their three games with Arizona, UCLA or Oregon State. Everyone focuses on the fact that UCLA has been so up and down. I don’t think the Bruins are a great team under the direction of Dorrell as I didn’t rank them within my Top-25 at the start of the season. Other than the Utah game, when they turned the ball over 9 times, the Bruins have played every team tough. There is considerable talent on that team and in spite of some horrific coaching, they can rise and beat people.

The Arizona game in Tucson is a bit of trap game for Oregon as this rivalry has developed into a bit of a grudge match as the recruiting issues have taken center stage this week with the Register Guards reporting of the fact that the Ducks have taken several Wildcat recruits after they have verbally committed to the Cats.

Stoops victory last year was, in his words, “the most gratifying of his career,” and when given the fact that Stoops was raised on the CFA side of the equation (both Mike and Bob were hired by Chuck Neinas’s consulting firm), while Bellotti was raised on the NCAA side of the equation, the plot thickens.

Brother Stoops would love nothing better than to help Brother Stoops out by eliminating Oregon from the big dance and delivering Oklahoma to its restored CFA /BCS order.

The game is played in Tucson and given the fact that the PAC-10 is a complete cluster-SNAFU in the officiating world, you wonder if Chuck Neinas and Mack Brown may actually conceive a plan to fly in the same officiating crew that worked the Texas - Texas Tech game to deliver the CFA fraternity to its destined promise land.

After all, these teams have contributed the most in terms of the development of the game and if you compare Oregon’s schedule to Oklahoma’s 50 year history, tradition and named brand market appeal with the television networks, you might as well mark it down.

Oklahoma will be a shoe-in to play against LSU in New Orleans and I will even go as far to say that both teams will play in New Orleans even if LSU loses the SEC title game.

After all, how can we penalize LSU for playing such a juggernaut of a schedule, three ranked teams in a thirteen game schedule when Oregon plays such a pathetic slate in the Patsy-10?

By the way, that was used the last time Oregon was squeezed out of the title game in 2002, when Nebraska was vetoed into the title game after failing to win its Division, let alone playing in the conference championship game.

With all of the themes running congruent year after year, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. The more things change with the parity in the game, the more they remain the same!

Mark it down, the CFA will strike again for they both rule and control the BCS and when the vote comes down in December what can we actually do about it, other than bitch, whine and moan!

Oregon fans be warned, especially considering the Oklahoma -Oregon debacle last year in Eugene, payback - CFA Style - will be quite the witch to handle!