ShareThisThe way too many tell it, college football is on the verge of Armageddon. Conference realignment threatens the sport so much that we might as well get ready for a Canadian rules -- three downs, 150-yard fields, the one-point rouge, etc.
NCAA president Mark Emmert, always a fan of any incendiary topic, did his best to fan the flames.
"The world's convinced that's all we care about ... that all this is about money,'' Emmert said.
Advice for the rest of us: Relax.
Texas A&M's move to the SEC is merely the first shot in what will be a barrage of change. But guess what? The game will be fine and is likely to thrive.
Why? Because it's spent the last 20 years changing. Just take a trip back 20 years ago.
Back then, there was no Big 12, just the Big 8 where Oklahoma was still digging out of the post-Barry Switzer NCAA fallout and Nebraska was just another slow, Midwest team that couldn't win a big game. Colorado was the top dog then.
The Buffaloes had just won a share of the national title the year before and Miami and Washington would share the crown in '91, the second straight year of split-national titles, the Hurricanes winning the Orange Bowl and the Huskies the Rose Bowl.
Miami also won the first year of the haphazard Big East by beating just two Big East schools -- West Virginia and Boston College. Co-champ Syracuse, went 5-0 vs. conference foes but didn't play unbeaten Miami. Huh?
Georgia Tech grabbed a share of the national crown in 1990 by beating Nebraska in the Florida Citrus Bowl. Ties were still prevalent as Colorado and Ga. Tech combined to deadlock three games that year.
The SEC had just 10 teams, no conference championship game. The Dixie Kings hadn't produced a national title in 11 years and just one Heisman winner in the previous 20. Clemson fans fondly remember 1991 -- amazingly it was the Tigers' last ACC championship. A&M ruled the dearly departed, morally-challenged Southwest Conference
Future ESPN Gameday star Desmond Howard was a strike-a-pose Heisman winner at Michigan. His Wolverines teammate QB Elvis Grbac led the nation in passing efficiency.
Does all this sound much like today's landscape? Add in this final financial nugget: A trip to the Orange Bowl earned a school a bit less than $2 million in 1991, or just 12 percent of what it gets today.
The problem with college football is not that Texas might not play Texas A&M or Oklahoma anymore. As former Auburn coach Pat Dye said on Monday's Scripps Legends Poll teleconference, "If Oklahoma and Texas wanted to play, they could. Their athletic directors have sense enough to schedule a game.''
Once upon a time, Oklahoma-Nebraska was the biggest game in the land. But now who knows if they'll ever play again? Instead, Big Red Nation gets fired up for Big Ten showdowns like Saturday's trip to Wisconsin or dates with Penn State, Michigan and Iowa later on.
Nothing wrong with that says former Georgia coach Vince Dooley, another Scripps Legend pollster.
"When teams move conferences, these rivals can change and you can pick up new rivals in a hurry, especially if it's the state right next to you,'' Dooley said.
This realignment move is also likely to push us closer to the playoff so many fans want. If somehow we wound up with four 16-team superconferences, an eight-game playoff involving eight bowls becomes easy to accomplish.
Only one problem -- the inane 12-game schedule. The albatross of greed that allows Michigan to open the season with five straight home games and makes sure 50 teams from BCS leagues will play at least one sacrificial I-AA lamb.
This is what the status quo and current conference setup gets us. And that's just not good enough.
When these superconferences start talking TV deals, which games do you think the networks are interested in -- Nebraska-Chattanooga or LSU-West Virginia? Realignment and a playoff format from a reduced 11-game regular season gets us a lot more of the latter and less of the former.
UPSET PICK: Coaching-challenged Pitt dropped us to 0-4. But how about veteran Bill Snyder and his Kansas State Wildcats to upend No. 16 Baylor Saturday in Manhattan?
DID YOU SEE THAT? Another black eye for the pitiful NCAA replay system Saturday when two officials standing under the uprights and a replay guy upstairs all somehow failed to see that Syracuse missed its extra point late in a 33-30 overtime win over Toledo. Had the proper call been made, the Rockets' chip shot field goal on the final play of regulation would have given Toledo a win. Instead, it merely forced overtime and a loss.
We're sick of seeing such incompetence. Everyone involved in this fiasco -- the referee, linesmen judging the kick and especially the replay official -- should be suspended for the rest of the season. The way to fix officiating problems is with better officials, not technology dependent upon people who can't use it.
(John Lindsay is sports editor for Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com. Contact him at lindsayj@shns.com)
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