MAC Doing Its Best to Bowl Over Alliance

Everyone has hobbies. Some guys collect stamps.

For me, it has always been bird watching and tracking mid-level, alphabet soup Division I football conferences that don’t get due respect.

Last year, it was the Western Athletic Conference, a pinball machine of a league that took on

the Bowl Alliance in an antitrust brawl that spilled out of saloons into the halls of Congress.

The WAC did not appreciate getting turned away at the alliance prom, a four-conference “alleged” monopoly holding college football’s purse strings--including three $8-million bowl games.

When BYU went 13-1 and didn’t get a whiff at one of two at-large berths, and Wyoming finished 10-2 and didn’t get a bowl invite at all, the WAC took its case to Washington, and eventually plea-bargained a tentative access agreement with the new alliance beginning in 1998, when the Big Ten and Pacific 10 conferences come aboard.

Funny, this year’s gutty little conference even rhymes with WAC.

It’s the MAC--Mid-American Conference.

One of four non-alliance (have-not) conferences--the others are the WAC, Conference USA, and Big West--the 51-year-old MAC is smack-dab in the midst of its best season.

The MAC has four teams receiving Associated Press votes--Toledo, Marshall, Miami (Ohio) and Ohio--for the first time. Toledo is 7-0 and ranked No. 22 this week, four places below No. 18 Purdue (6-1), which Toledo defeated.

Miami of Ohio (6-2) is unranked despite having defeated No. 23 Virginia Tech. Unranked Ohio’s only loss was a three-point defeat at No. 13 Kansas State.

MAC conspiracy?

You bet. Oliver Stone should make a movie.

The MAC has overhauled its look from the “three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-

dust” days, when Miami of Ohio was the “cradle of college coaches,” having spawned such legends as Ara Parseghian and Bo Schembechler.

Today, 11 of 12 MAC teams run some version of the West Coast offense. The exception is Ohio, whose coach, Jim Grobe, is a disciple of option-king Fisher DeBerry of Air Force.

Ohio (7-1) is a cuddly, Northwestern-type yarn, lacking only the swarms of journalism school graduates to move the story.

The Bobcats were 0-11 in 1994, the year before Grobe took over.

Last week, in a 21-17 victory over Akron, Ohio posted one of the greatest agate lines ever. “Passing: none.” You read it right. Junior quarterback Kareem Wilson, a 5-foot-7 junior, did not attempt a pass.

The Bobcats have thrown for 341 yards all season, slightly more than Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning’s per-game average of 329.

Six of 12 MAC teams are averaging 30 points or more a game. The conference has a receiver, Marshall’s Randy Moss, who would be clearing a spot on his mantel for the Heisman if he played in a conference with a television deal.

Sure, the MAC has problems.

Unlike the Big 12, Big East, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast, its champion does not receive an automatic bid to an $8-million game.

This year, the MAC probably will have five bowl-qualified teams and only one guaranteed postseason berth, the upstart Motor City Bowl.

Conversely, the alliance-protected, watered-down, overrated Big East has four guaranteed bowl slots.

The joke is that the Big East may not have a fourth team with the six victories necessary for its Liberty Bowl spot, and that the MAC might have to come to the rescue.

Like a man hocking aluminum siding, MAC Commissioner Jerry Ippoliti is vigorously selling his teams to bowl committee chairmen in loud jackets.

Ippoliti also is hoping the Independence, Humanitarian and Las Vegas bowls--all with at-large berths--will consider a MAC team.

Should a conference with qualified bowl teams have to peddle its wares?

The MAC elected not to join the WAC and Conference USA in last year’s legal fight against the Bowl Alliance, which netted a tentative agreement in which a team from either conference will get one of two at-large alliance-bowl berths should it rank sixth or higher in the polls.

“We did not take a legal position as did the WAC and Conference USA,” Ippoliti said. “That’s never been the posture of the Mid-American Conference. We’ve never done business that way in the past.

“We thought eventually the alliance would work itself out and give serious consideration to the Mid-American Conference in the future.”

Is not the future now?

“If that doesn’t come to fruition with the success we’re having, then thoughts may change with our presidents,” Ippoliti said of the MAC’s alliance strategy.

The MAC is awaiting reply on a proposal it has sent to the alliance regarding better bowl access.

Ippoliti wouldn’t say what was in the proposal, but it assuredly asks for some WAC-like guarantee and financial reward should a MAC team bust into the top 10.

More important, the MAC has to upgrade its rinky-dink regional television package if it is to compete with the big boys for players and attention.

“We have to do those things,” Ippoliti said. “Then be consistent and go back-to-back with these kinds of seasons. We’re just having an outstanding year, and I can see that happening quite often in the near future.”

CONFERENCE CALLS

It’s late October, do you know how your favorite races are shaking out?

* Pac-10: The Washingtons control the story, each needing to win out to go to the Rose Bowl. UCLA needs to win out and have Washington State lose twice. Arizona State needs to win its last four, and also needs two Washington losses and a UCLA defeat.

Date to circle: Nov. 22. Washington State at Washington.

* Big Ten: Penn State and Michigan go to the Rose Bowl if either wins out. Purdue could go 8-0 in conference and lose out to 8-0 Michigan because of the Boilermakers’ nonconference loss to Toledo. Ohio State needs two Penn State losses, a Purdue loss and, get this, to actually beat Michigan.

Date to circle: Nov. 8. Michigan at Penn State.

* Southeastern: It’s shaping up as Florida-Auburn in the SEC title game. Key note: Even if Georgia beats Florida this weekend, the Gators win a three-way tie with Tennessee for the SEC East title because Florida’s loss to West foe LSU was out of the division.

Date to circle: Saturday, Georgia at Florida (in Jacksonville).

* Atlantic Coast: If North Carolina passes a road test tonight at Georgia Tech, the conference race will be decided Nov. 8 in Chapel Hill against Florida State.

* Big East: Who cares? OK, some school has to win this, so why not West Virginia, which lost to Boston College, which lost to Notre Dame by 32 points?

Date to circle: Saturday, West Virginia at Syracuse.

* Big 12: Nebraska and the 11 Dwarfs. Texas Tech has quietly slipped back into the South Division race, but the winner there wins only the honor of being drubbed by the Cornhuskers in the Big 12 title game.

Date to circle: Nov. 15, Texas Tech at Oklahoma State.

* WAC: Rice and Brigham Young are tied atop the Mountain Division, but Rice wins the tiebreaker because it beat BYU. With Air Force losing two in a row, Colorado State is now fighting off Fresno State for the Pacific title.

Date to circle: Nov. 8, Fresno State at Colorado State.

* MAC: Toledo will win the South Division, while the East is a three-way fight involving Ohio, Marshall, and Miami of Ohio. Ohio is unbeaten in conference but still has to play Marshall and Miami of Ohio.

* Conference USA: Southern Mississippi has the inside track to the Liberty Bowl; Houston is 2-0 in conference but needs to win three of its last four to get the bowl-necessary six victories.

Date to circle: Nov. 15, Houston at Southern Mississippi.

* Big West: The only I-A conference in which no team has a winning record, although Utah State, Boise State and Nevada are all 2-0 in conference play.

Date to circle: The end of the season.

MEMO TO COACHES

Dear sirs, you do not need to go for a two-point conversion until after the second overtime.

Since North Carolina State’s Mike O’Cain surprised Syracuse with a two-point conversion in its season-opening overtime victory, four other coaches have tried the tactic and failed--three times in the last two weeks.

The decisions last weekend affected two undefeated teams.

At Stillwater, Oklahoma State Coach Bob Simmons rolled the dice on his team’s unbeaten season when he elected to go for two against Missouri rather than kick an extra point that would have forced a second overtime. The attempt failed and Missouri won, 51-50.

At Pullman, Arizona Coach Dick Tomey made a similar two-point decision in a 35-34 overtime loss that kept Washington State unbeaten at 7-0.

Both coaches said they went for the victory because they feared their defenses could hold out no longer.

“I felt this was the time to try and get it done,” Simmons said.

Last year, Tomey went for two and failed in a four-overtime loss to California. Tomey claimed exhaustion in that one, a cry that prompted this year’s rule change that stipulates teams must go for two if the game extends beyond a second overtime.

“It had nothing to do with length [of the game],” Tomey said of Saturday’s decision. “It had to do with health. We had six, seven starters out of the game.”

COAST TO COAST

* Bumper-sticker proposal: “Illinois, Land of Lincoln and home to two of the worst football programs in America.” Of the four winless Division I programs, two are from the state that produced the 16th president--Illinois (0-7) and Northern Illinois (0-8). The other winless programs are Texas Christian (0-7) and Rutgers (0-8).

* Arizona freshman quarterback Ortege Jenkins is not only one of the most exciting talents to come into the Pac-10 in years, he’s one of the most outspoken. After Arizona’s 35-34 loss to Washington State, Jenkins made this blunt assessment of the Cougars’ chances of beating their cross-state rivals Nov. 22: “They’re going to get killed by Washington.”

Jenkins should know. Arizona lost to Washington, 58-28.

Washington State Coach Mike Price, on Jenkins: “He’s an interesting guy. He had some interesting quotes in the paper. He’ll be fun to have around for three years.”

* Hey, maybe Jenkins did his homework. Washington State has never started 8-0 and is 0-10 in November road games since Price became coach in 1989. Washington State plays at Arizona State this Saturday. On Nov. 1.

* Tulane (4-3) needs to win two of its last four games to post its first winning season since 1981.

* Penn State Coach Joe Paterno has recorded 294 victories in 32 seasons. Northwestern, the Nittany Lions’ opponent this week, has 396 victories in 116 years.

* A famous college coach was asked this week if the great play of his defense has forced him to rethink his offensive philosophy. “Sure, it affects your play calling,” the coach said. “The object is to win the game, not to see how many yards you roll up.”

The coach? Florida’s Steve Spurrier.

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Nagging Droughts

When New Mexico defeated San Diego State, 36-21, this season, it ended the Aztecs’ 13-game winning streak against the Lobos, which was one of the longest current streaks involving teams that play every year. The longest streak could end this week, when Notre Dame plays Navy. A look at the longest dry spells:

33--Notre Dame over Navy: (Notre Dame is 60-9-1 in series)

29--Nebraska over Kansas: (80-21-3 in rivalry)

29--Nebraska over Kansas State: (70-10-2 in rivalry)

15--Iowa over Iowa State: (33-12-0 in rivalry)

14--Virginia over Wake Forest: (28-11-0 in rivalry)

13--Colorado over Iowa State: (39-11-1 in rivalry)