How to Schedule Your Way Into a Bowl Game : Big Ten Teams Have Found That Lining Up Patsies Translates to Bowl Bids

When the Big Ten lifted its restrictions on bowl games in 1975, it was like pulling the plug that prevents the water from bursting through the dam.

Until then, only the Big Ten champion, which played in the Rose Bowl, could play in a postseason game. The other nine teams had to sit on the sidelines come holiday time.

But when the league allowed the others in the conference to vie for bowl spots, things changed--including some schedules.

“Some teams are scheduling their ways to bowl games,” said Ohio State Coach Earle Bruce, whose club usually is in the running for the Rose Bowl. “It’s no secret. Schedule some soft teams before the league schedule begins.”

Wise athletic directors, aware that their chances of going to the Rose Bowl were slim, could schedule some “soft” teams to get enough wins to impress the bowl scouts. In addition, winning tends to breed confidence and more spectators at the stadium. It is also easier to recruit when your ledger is in the black.

“You know you’ve got a chance at a bowl game if you go in with seven wins,” Illinois Coach Mike White said. “And if you go into the league season with three wins in the preseason (non-conference schedule) you’ve got a chance (to win seven).”

In the Big Ten, the biggest change in philosophy came at Iowa. The Hawkeyes were busy scheduling teams like of Penn State, Nebraska and Oklahoma and getting their brains beat out.

“What was the sense of doing that every week?” said Iowa Coach Hayden Fry. “You get your butts whipped and then also lose so many guys to injury that you are bumped and bruised for the league season.”

Athletic director Bump Elliott and Fry got together and looked at the schedule. Scratch Penn State. Add UTEP. Erase Nebraska. Add Northern Illinois.

That translated into two whopping wins by an aggregate score of 127-6 this season instead of the opposite drubbings the Hawkeyes used to take. It also meant Fry’s young team gained experience, tasted victory, avoided injury and produced enough victories for a cushion for a postseason bowl bid. Iowa regularly goes to a bowl game these days after experiencing a two-decade drought.

“America understands winning and losing. Winning is just easier to understand,” Fry said.

Fry could also point to the regular sellout crowds at Kinnick Stadium now. It doesn’t matter whether Iowa beats UTEP or Wisconsin, the crowds keep coming in. Next year promises more of the same. Iowa plays Kansas State, Colorado and Iowa State.

Iowa’s schedule isn’t unique. Kentucky was in a similar situation in the Southeastern Conference. It started scheduling teams like Cincinnati and Rutgers and picked up enough wins to get a bowl bid, even if it had a mediocre finish in the SEC.

Not everyone subscribes to the Iowa theory of scheduling.

At Illinois, attendance had dwindled in the late 1970s as the Illini lost regularly to good and bad teams alike. The schedule improved at the same time the Illini did and sellout crowds became the rule rather than the exception.

This year, Illinois is down and was whipped by Nebraska 59-14 at home, one week after losing to USC.

“We still had a good attitude, a good feeling, about our football team,” said White. “I believe in playing the best. I think we owe it to the players, the fans.”

Tough schedules can backfire in other ways.

Minnesota was walloped by then No. 1 Oklahoma 64-0 in September. The blowout had been anticipated. But the following week the Golden Gophers were upset at home by Pacific, a team they figured to beat handily.

Likewise, seemingly easy schedules don’t always translate into victories.

Wisconsin, a preseason darkhorse for Big Ten honors, played Hawaii, Northern Illinois, Nevada-Las Vegas and Wyoming to prep for the Big Ten season.

The Badgers lost three of the four games, beating only Northern Illinois. Three games that could have been wins and a springboard to a bowl game turned into defeats.

Critics suggested that Iowa’s losses in the Rose Bowl the past two times the Hawkeyes went to Pasadena were due to the weaker schedule.

That argument doesn’t hold much water, considering the Big Ten’s failures on New Year’s Day. Michigan, Ohio State and Illinois have all lost in the Rose Bowl in the 1980s and all had more difficult non-conference schedules.

Inequities in scheduling will continue to exist in the Big Ten as long as the conference refuses to play a round-robin schedule. In 1983 and 1984, the league played nine conference games, cutting the nonleague games to just two.

“To me, that was the only fair way to determine the league championship,” White said. “To me, the leagues that are smaller and have just eight teams are all playing each other and that is the way to determine whose the best.”

But with bowl revenues dangling as an incentive, the Big Ten isn’t likely to go back to the nine-game format. By playing three nonleague games, more wins, more spectators and a better possibility for bowl bids and money are likely for member schools.