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Rose Bowl News
An ambitious wind that streams not from temperature differentials in the air, but from the bellows of commerce, is beginning to howl again.It's the debate over a major-college football playoff.
Somewhere out there, coyotes yap better ideas in the dark.
The Southeastern Conference, where passion always exceeds perspective in football matters, has been punting the concept back and forth again.
Where it will land no one knows.
Bernie Machen, the University of Florida president, envisions $100 million more than the present BCS Bowl Championship Series generated last season, although Friday he said the best idea would be for the BCS to stick around.
In 2006, the BCS drew $218 million, 86 percent of which, according to Steve Weiberg writing in USA TODAY, went to six conferences: SEC, Pacific-10, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and Atlantic Coast, plus one school, Notre Dame.
Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood likes things they way they are.
"I'm not in favor of a playoff plan for a number of reasons," Livengood said. "First, I think it would hurt a great bowl system - and that's not good.
"Secondly, what we have - the BCS - is doing exactly what we set out to do, and that is to have No. 1 play No. 2."
The Florida Gators, who were ranked No. 2, upset No. 1 Ohio State 41-14 Jan. 8 in Glendale to win the national championship.
Jim Delaney, commissioner of the Big Ten, wrote Machen in opposition to a playoff. The Big Ten, he said, isn't even interested in discussing the idea.
"Jim's thinking is right-on in my opinion," Livengood said. "And as far as the Pac-10 is concerned, I don't think our conference would ever be in favor of a playoff."
That's understandable, since the very term "bowl game" originated from the Pac-10's crown jewel, the Rose Bowl. The Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., has been sponsoring the game for more than a century. The first Rose Bowl, in 1902, was won by Michigan over Stanford 49-0.
There are now 32 bowl games. And the communities who work so hard promoting them are as much in love with the bowls as the Southeastern Conference is about large sums of revenue.
OK, maybe names such as the Weedeater Bowl or Uncle Ernie's Pork Sausage Bowl, stretch the envelope of good taste a bit. And it's worse, I think, to share business and bowl games, such as:
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl . . . AutoZone Liberty Bowl . . . AT&T Cotton Bowl . . . even the Rose Bowl presented by Citi and the Tostitos Bowl Championship Series Championship Game.
But, hey, those companies pay the freight and keep the bowls in business.
And by the time the postseason rolls around, we have a fair idea of who the No. 1 and 2 teams are (even though undefeated Boise State at 13-0, could understandably argue the point after crunching Oklahoma's ego in the Tostitos Fiesta last season).
The truth is, except for the money, the idea of a football playoff is as pointless as a pretzel.
South Carolina president Andrew Sorensen says the season is long enough as it is. "We've got the 12-game regular season, the bowl games and in many conferences, including ours (the SEC), a game to determine a conference champion.
"That's 14 games before you start a playoff, and that's a long season." Amen.
The Pac-10 champion is the team atop the standings at the end of the regular season. That's the way it should be.
Of course, for years there has been talk of expanding the Pac-10 by a couple of schools, splitting into divisions and, like the SEC and others, playing a championship contest.
"I'm not in favor of Pac-10 expansion," Livengood said, "unless it would be a great financial plus and the schools involved would be the right collection.
"I love the 10 schools we have right now, and I like where they're located. It's a perfect match. There's something to be said for having 10 schools in four states."
As far as the idea of a national collegiate football playoff, the new look would never have the old gleam of bowl games around the country.
And the enlarged - and divided - Pac-10?
In your dreams.
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