The Ultimate Controversy

[X-Rated]

The Orange Bowl.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20121202/sports/712029790/


The Huskies going to a BCS bowl was met with immediate controversy.

“The fact that Northern Illinois is in the BCS in 2012 is really a sad state for college football and where we are with the current system,” said ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit. “They don’t deserve to be in the BCS this year. Are you kidding me?

“There are two things that stand out here: Northern Illinois, nobody even knew they were playing until they got to the Toledo game two weeks ago. You’re going to leave Oklahoma out to put Northern Illinois into a BCS Bowl game? To me, putting Northern Illinois or a Kent State in the BCS this year would be an injustice to these other teams.

“To leave teams out like Georgia and Texas A&M and Oklahoma, all of us want to see those teams in games that matter, and you’re going to give us Northern Illinois?”

Huskies quarterback Jordan Lynch was quick to defend his team from the critics.

“It’s a dream come true for all of us,” Lynch said. “We’re 12-1, we won tons of games this year. We’re the MAC champions two years in a row. We definitely deserve to be in there.”

Bill Hancock, BCS executive director, also supported NIU’s inclusion.

“Northern Illinois qualified by a comfortable margin,” Hancock said. “It was a matter of Northern Illinois meeting the threshold by virtue of their performance all season.”

Yeah. NIU will be "Orange Crushed". Go Huskies.

[W3WN]

NCAA Division 1A, aka FBS, needs a real playoff system, just like very other level of Semi-Pro Minor League College Football. Ain't gonna happen due to all the money flying around... which makes millions for the bowls and not much $$ for the schools.

[X-Rated]

Even at that rate, if you have 16 schools, should they all be NCAA Division 1A? I think that this is the first NCAA Division 1AA school in the BCS bowl. Who should be allowed into that theoretical playoff group? These guys are bitchin that Oklahoma got left out. I think (even though I am a Northern Illinois fan) this is a valid point. For example, both Oklahoma and Northern Illinois played Kansas this year. Northern Illinois scored 17 points in the last half of the 4th quarter to beat Kansas 30-23. Oklahoma crushed Kansas 52-7. And that was later in the season when Kansas was playing better. Northern Illinois did have an 11-1 season, but the strength of schedule was weak. Even the game with Big 10 team, Iowa, was one where they lost by a point and Iowa is no great team this year. If it had been Ohio State or Penn State, I would have a different opinion of them losing by one point to the Big 10 team. But it wasn't.

Here is the NIU season...

Sat, Sept 1 vs Iowa* L 18-17 0-1 (0-0)
Sat, Sept 8 vs Tenn-Martin W 35-7 1-1 (0-0)
Sat, Sept 15 @ Army W 41-40 2-1 (0-0)
Sat, Sept 22 vs Kansas W 30-23 3-1 (0-0)
Sat, Sept 29 vs Cent Michigan W 55-24 4-1 (1-0)
Sat, Oct 6 @ Ball St W 35-23 5-1 (2-0)
Sat, Oct 13 vs Buffalo W 45-3 6-1 (3-0)
Sat, Oct 20 @ Akron W 37-7 7-1 (4-0)
Sat, Oct 27 @ W Michigan W 48-34 8-1 (5-0)
Sat, Nov 3 vs Massachusetts W 63-0 9-1 (6-0)
Wed, Nov 14 vs Toledo W 31-24 10-1 (7-0)
Fri, Nov 23 @ E Michigan W 49-7 11-1 (8-0)
Fri, Nov 30 vs #17 Kent St* W 44-37 2OT 12-1 (8-0)

Even Notre Dame beats Army. Easy schedule. Now they take on Florida State. No doubt, Fl ST will win this one.

[W3WN]

The system is flawed & corrupt.

The bowl games exist for one purpose: To make money for the bowl games. The schools have become so seduced by the paydays that they often lose sight of that reality.

Only the schools that go to the biggest paying bowls make a few bucks; and since almost all of them are in conferences, they have to split the revenue with the other schools in the conference (of course, if enough schools make bowl games, they all get a piece of everyone else's pies). But... the schools also have to buy a minimum allotment of tickets, at face value -- about 15K or so per school average. They have to pay full rate for the hotels. And airfare. Not just for the team, but for coaches, administrators, band, cheerleaders...

Most schools are lucky to break even. All for the "glory" of appearing at 3 AM on ESPN2 for the National Kumquat Bowl.

Of course, the bowls make millions... between TV appearance fees, sponsorship money, ticket sales (and they can discount tickets, one of the reasons so many schools get stuck with unsold tickets), trinkets... plus kickbacks, er, licensing fees from the hotels. And the communities have an influx of tourists with money to spend. Which is why you have a National Kumquat Bowl... that's only been around for a few years, since Sasquatch City in the middle of nowhere needs that tourist revenue!

The NCAA could straighten this out with a real playoff system. But they won't. Too much $$$ floating around... including $$ from the networks to keep their mouths shut -- indirectly, of course, we wouldn't want the APPEARANCE of a bribe.

Poor NIU. The players thought they'd done a good thing. Little did they know...

[W5GA]

You mean that someone actually cares?

[N7YA]

I thought the NFL just took the misbehaving turds right out of high school these days.