Bowl Plan Alienates the West

As one of college football’s chosen few, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden believes half a national championship playoff is better than none at all.

“I like the tournament,” Bowden says of the newly formed alliance that’s still looking for a name (the Main Bowl Coalition?). “I was one of the guys who always voted against a playoff ‘cause I never felt we could do one unless we extended our season and I never thought that was a good idea for these boys . . .

“I really think this new setup is about as close as we’re gonna get to a playoff system, at least in my day. Now, the winner of the ACC, of which we are a member, and the winner of the Big East, of which Miami is a member, and Notre Dame, which belongs to Notre Dame’s conference, are gonna have a choice to goin’ where the No. 1 game is. I think that’s as close as we’re gonna get.”

Bowden would say that. He’s in, and he’s in contention. His Seminoles are ranked No. 1 entering the 1991 season and by the time the Orange, Cotton, Sugar and Fiesta bowls formally tie the knot in 1992, Florida State should be somewhere deep in the mix again.

But what’s close for Bowden is not close for some foreign legions who punt, pass and kick on the left side of the Great Lakes. The Pacific 10, owner of three national championships since 1972, and the Western Athletic Conference, home to 1984 national champion BYU, have apparently fallen into the ocean. The Big Ten has vanished from the map.

If the alliance is the answer, here’s a partial list of teams no longer eligible for college football’s annual championship after 1991:

USC.

UCLA.

Michigan.

Ohio State.

Washington.

BYU.

Penn State.

“Whatever they say, they’re not getting a true national championship tournament,” says Don Andersen, executive director of the Freedom Bowl. “I recall, during the 1970s, when USC and Ohio State played for the national championship two years in a row in the Rose Bowl. And there have been other years when USC and Washington have been in the hunt.

“But the Rose Bowl agreement has not been affected. The winners of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten will still play in the Rose Bowl. And this new alignment doesn’t involve the Rose Bowl.”

It also doesn’t involve the Holiday Bowl, which is guaranteed the WAC champion every year and which is where BYU clinched the title in 1984. This is a sizable chunk of non-involvement--three conferences, 30 teams, and includes basically the whole Western half of the United States.

The beast belongs to the East. Five conferences--the ACC, the Big East, the SEC, the SWC and the Big Eight--have agreed to send their champions to one of four alliance bowls. Notre Dame is also on board, leaving room for the two next-best independents or conference runners-up.

“The West has been left out of the equation,” Andersen says, and don’t think the West hasn’t noticed. Beyond the Rockies, a persecution complex has kept the college football machinery working for years--They Hate Us Because Of Our Late Scores--and this week’s news has provided fuel injection.

“I don’t think the coalition changes much for the Western teams and the Western bowls,” says Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen. “Quite frankly, Eastern bowls, historically, have not been interested in teams from the West, no matter how good we are.

“The Pac-10 had the best winning percentage in bowl games of any conference during the 1980s, yet with the exception of Washington and the 1985 Orange Bowl and UCLA and the 1989 Cotton Bowl, we haven’t received a great deal of attention from those games.”

The alliance simply thrusts the Eastern bias into the open, but Hansen fears it could be the first step toward a far worse destination.

“The Pac-10 continues to be concerned with how things are going nationally with the prospect that, in 1995 and ‘96, when the current football television contract expires, we might see super conferences with 14 or 16 members that would be television properties in themselves and we could be cut out and isolated on the West Coast from some of the television agreements that we have enjoyed.

“That is our biggest concern. We must keep a very close eye on what’s happening around the country to ensure that we are not left out of the football television picture.”

Somehow, Hansen believes the West needs to respond. He has a suggestion.

“I believe the Western teams and the Western bowls should now work together,” he says, “because this is where we have the best postseason opportunities.” In other words, one alliance deserves another. Hansen would like to see the NCAA reverse itself and allow bowl tie-ins with conference runners-up--say, guaranteeing the Freedom Bowl the Pac-10’s second-place finisher or the Holiday Bowl the No. 2 team from the Big Ten.

Andersen would like that, too. The Freedom Bowl could do a lot worse than extending an annual bid to the runner-up from the Pac-10.

For the past seven years, it has.

Then, one day, the champion from the Western alliance and the champion from the Eastern alliance might meet in the ultimate alliance, which is what the playoff proponents have been pushing all along.

That would be a solution. But under the present alignment, with East meeting East on New Year’s Day, college football is left with a system to determine half a championship, and that’s no better than the deal Colorado and Georgia Tech got last season.