59-0: Is This Football or the Lion’s Den? : Small athletic programs pit outmatched athletes against bruisers to bring in big bucks

The arrival of the college football season brings some sorry mismatches along with its high expectations. There are some good examples in Southern California, which is home both to major football powers and to teams like Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton. Now the Cal State schools find themselves cast in the role of Davids to Goliaths like Clemson and Auburn.

The reason for this is money, even more than misplaced dreams of glory. By putting the bodies of their athletes on the line, smaller athletic programs bring in big bucks. But such overreaching brings little real benefit in the end, and it risks humiliation and even injury for outmanned squads.

Just ask one of professional football’s legends, George Allen. He’s picking up the pieces as the Long Beach coach after last Saturday’s 59-0 drubbing at Clemson. Not even a pregame pep talk from Allen’s old Washington Redskins chaplain could provide sufficient inspiration.

Now Allen’s counterpart at Cal State Fullerton, coach Gene Murphy, has his own nightmare ahead Saturday. His injured and inexperienced squad meets Auburn, ranked third nationally. Murphy has declared he cannot win; he’s dispensing altogether with the inspirational messages.

Allen, too, is candid after his eye-opening first game. He was worried about injury to his outmatched squad, and said he didn’t “think such games help the winner or the loser.” Two key players were injured, and the game was the worst drubbing in history for the school--and Allen’s worst loss ever in a distinguished career. All that can hardly be worth the $250,000 it brought the college’s athletic program.

Cal State Fullerton’s game this Saturday with Auburn proves Allen’s point about whether even the likely winner benefits. The game is of so little consequence to Auburn that it didn’t bother scouting Fullerton.

There’s an implicit recognition of danger, too, even if there are no comprehensive injury statistics on what happens when small schools step into the lion’s den. Allen senses it. So, perhaps, did the University of the Pacific, which was first scheduled to be Auburn’s sacrificial lamb, but withdrew.

College athletic directors who agree to these schedules well in advance should think twice before trying to build football programs with big money earned in somebody else’s laughers. They may be building houses of straw. When teams risk injury and demoralization playing out of their leagues, it’s not funny. It can even be downright dangerous.