Making the Play Doesn’t Pay Off

The pressure mounts and the stakes get higher.

For the coaches?

No, for the players.

There will be about $20 million on the table Saturday when USC and Notre Dame clash at the Coliseum and, once more, the guards, receivers and centers who decide the outcome will get squat.

Victory improves Notre Dame’s record to 9-2 and assures the Irish a $13.5-million bowl championship series game, likely the Fiesta. A defeat drops Notre Dame to the $1.4-million Gator Bowl.

Because it is an independent, Notre Dame does not have to share bowl money with conference members.

A USC win probably knocks Oregon State into the Fiesta Bowl, earning the Pacific 10 Conference an additional $6 million for putting a second team in a BCS bowl which, split 10 ways, would ironically provide the Trojans the “found” money they need to buy out Paul Hackett’s contract.

No one likes to see coaches fired, but the coaches are the professionals here.

Financially, they never lose.

Make it big in this business and it’s like hitting the lottery. Oklahoma tore up Coach Bob Stoops’ contract this year after he beat Nebraska and he now makes $1.4 million a season. Lou Holtz, Tommy Bowden and Steve Spurrier have all had their contracts reworked. The next coach at Alabama will become Alabama’s next millionaire.

Even the ousted are well-compensated; witness Arizona State’s $1.3-million payoff to departing Coach Bruce Snyder.

Wronged as he was by dismissal, Snyder isn’t going away hungry.

Coaches hire agents who construct air-tight deals.

Players hire agents and lose their eligibility.

Where is the equity here?

Bowl money is skyrocketing and the players in the Pac-10 need a judicial ruling to get a year-round training table?

Four years ago, Notre Dame kicker Jim Sanson missed an extra point against USC that allowed the Trojans to win the game in overtime.

It cost Notre Dame a Fiesta Bowl trip and $8.5 million.

That game turned out to be Holtz’s last as Irish coach. He went on to a lucrative network job and then struck it rich at South Carolina.

Sanson received . . . death threats.

Two years ago, a 10-0 loss to USC cost Notre Dame another $8.5 million.

“The rules are such and you kind of live with them,” former Notre Dame player Ivory Covington said this week. “It’s tough. You get none of the financial benefit, yet at the same time, your life is an open book to everyone. You don’t make the play and you lose your school $13 million and next thing you know you’re public enemy No. 1.”

Covington was college football’s first $8-million man.

In 1995, against Army, the 161-pound defensive back tackled tight end Ron Leshinski at the one-foot line on a two-point conversion attempt to preserve a 28-27 victory. That tackle ultimately earned Notre Dame an $8-million trip to the Orange Bowl.

Covington?

Today, he’s a computer consultant in Chicago. He was not drafted by the NFL and never made a dime in professional football.

Yet, he wonders what would have happened had he missed that tackle.

“That will always be the asterisk by your name in the books,” Covington says. “Whenever your name comes up in conversation, you’ll be that guy who missed that tackle that could have made the school however much money and went to that huge bowl game. You kind of hope for the players’ sake that it never turns out that way, because it’s such a negative cloud that will hang over you.”

Covington is not bemoaning his college experience. He received a full scholarship from Notre Dame and is gainfully employed because of it.

But he says the pressure on amateurs is alarmingly disproportionate.

He says it is different than Brett Favre throwing an interception to cost the Green Bay Packers the Super Bowl.

“When you’re getting paid for it, that’s your job,” Covington says. “You’re expected to make that play, no matter what, and if you don’t you can justify the criticism because they’re paying you $20 million.”

Footnote: In July, the Irish took an alumni team to Europe to play an exhibition game against the Hamburg Blue Devils.

On the game’s last play, with Notre Dame up, 14-10, the Hamburg quarterback’s potential game-winning touchdown pass was intercepted in the end zone by a computer consultant from Chicago.

His name?

Ivory Covington.

DECIMAL POINTS

This week’s math bamboozler: No. 3 Miami is going to have a tough time making up .51 of a point on No. 2 Florida State in the BCS rankings, no matter how badly the Hurricanes beat Boston College. “Miami’s biggest current problem is not BC, but that FSU is No. 1 in four of the computers,” Chicago-based math expert Jerry Palm says.

You talk about conflicted. Miami needs to: 1) root for Oklahoma to lose one of its next two games, which would cinch a national title berth for the Hurricanes (provided they defeat Boston College), or 2) root for Oklahoma to rout Oklahoma State and Kansas State so resoundingly that the Sooners overtake Florida State in at least three of the four computers.

If Florida State, which is No. 1 in four computers--Billingsley, Dunkel, New York Times and Scripps-Howard--falls to No. 2 in three of those, its average in that component will rise from 1.43 to 1.86. That would trim .43 from Florida State’s .51 lead over Miami.

That, coupled with any computer boost Miami would get for defeating Boston College, could put the Hurricanes over the top.

Next week’s math bamboozler: We explain the splitting of an atom.

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

Washington is not a lock to go to the Rose Bowl. Should Miami lose to Boston College this week and Oklahoma lose to Oklahoma State or to Kansas State in the Big 12 title game, Washington would play Florida State for the national title in the Jan. 3 Orange Bowl.

Washington fans should not get their hopes up, however. Boston College hasn’t defeated Miami since . . . yep, Doug Flutie’s miracle pass in 1984.

Question: How come Texas Christian, a non-BCS school, would have been guaranteed an at-large BCS bowl spot if it finished No. 6 or higher in the final BCS rankings yet Oregon State, currently No. 5 in the BCS, is not a lock?

Oregon State (10-1) has a rooting interest in several games this weekend to improve its chances of garnering a Fiesta Bowl berth. The Beavers want USC to beat Notre Dame, Oklahoma State to upset Oklahoma and Virginia to defeat Virginia Tech.

How about this three-headed monster scenario? Should Miami defeat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, and Florida State topple Notre Dame in the Fiesta, and Washington takes care of Purdue in the Rose, all three victors would have legitimate claims to the national championship.

Our best guess at the major bowl lineup: Orange, Oklahoma vs. Florida State; Sugar, Florida vs. Virginia Tech; Fiesta, Miami vs. Notre Dame; Rose, Washington vs. Purdue.

At his Sunday morning breakfast with the media, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden conceded No. 4 Washington probably deserved a shot at playing for the national championship. Bowden acknowledges there is an inherent East Coast bias. “We started off with 13 original states,” Bowden said. “We’re still more popular over here.”

The talk of Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke being too old to win the Heisman Trophy is nuts. You could no more deny Weinke the trophy because he’s 28 than you would deny George Foreman the heavyweight title for taking advantage of a much-younger Michael Moorer.