Mid-American Battle Is Part of Game Within the Game

Never in a million years did I think “Northern Illinois at Bowling Green” could bat lead-off sentence in my college football column.

You can bet the guy driving the “ESPN GameDay” truck into Ohio this week is thinking the same thing.

“I’m eating at IHOP at 4 in the morning on my way to Northern Illinois at Bowling Green?”

Yet, this Mid-American Conference game has evolved into a midseason mini-drama.

No. 12 Northern Illinois (7-0) at No. 23 Bowling Green (6-1) on Saturday is more than a matchup of teams not affiliated with the bowl championship series.

It is a game with larger ramifications.

Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat this is not, but it is politically charged.

Northern Illinois debuted at No. 10 in this week’s first BCS standings and could be the test-case team non-BCS presidents can hold up to prove the BCS is a monopoly.

The BCS comprises the six major conferences, plus Notre Dame, and it essentially runs college football. The non-BCS cause is represented by five major college conferences not in the mix.

The timing could not be more interesting as the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for hearings Wednesday in Washington on anti-trust issues in college football.

The non-BCS presidents aligned in this debate are hoping Northern Illinois beats a good Bowling Green team on its way to an undefeated season.

This has nothing to do with Northern Illinois, per se, as it does with the larger fight.

The BCS maintains all 117 schools have access to its multimillion-dollar bowl system. A non-BCS team can earn an automatic berth in one of the four major bowls -- Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar -- by finishing No. 6 or better in the final BCS standings.

But what, really, are the chances?

“I would say it would be impossible to finish in the top six,” Tulane President Scott Cowen, the leading voice for the non-BCS, said in a telephone interview this week.

With a top-12 BCS finish, Northern Illinois could be considered for an at-large berth.

“But we think that’s very unlikely,” Cowen said.

Since the BCS was formed in 1998, no school from a non-BCS conference has qualified for a major bowl or been selected as an at-large competitor. Winning your way into a big-money game is important because the BCS shares $115 million annually with its members, while non-BCS schools get only a pittance of that amount.

Let’s just say the non-BCS folks have been looking for a team like Northern Illinois to come along.

Others have tried, gamely, to take up the cause.

“We’ve had those laboratory tests already,” Cowen maintained.

Well, not really.

In 1998, Tulane, Cowen’s school, finished undefeated but ended up No. 10 in the BCS standings. A year later, Marshall was also undefeated but finished No. 12.

The BCS had a great retort for cries of exclusion in those cases, mainly that Tulane and Marshall played marshmallow schedules.

The case for Northern Illinois is more compelling.

The Huskies have, thus far, done everything a non-BCS school could do to compete with the BCS.

Northern Illinois scheduled three nonconference games against BCS schools -- Maryland, Alabama, Iowa State -- and won them all.

“In a way this may be the best example, because now you have a school like Northern Illinois that really did play a lot of BCS schools and beat them,” Cowen said.

It was not Northern Illinois’ fault those BCS schools have stumbled to a cumulative 10-12 record. Northern Illinois also plays in a conference, the Mid-American, that has scored other significant upsets against BCS schools this year, namely Bowling Green over Purdue and Toledo over Pittsburgh.

Yet, oddly, Northern Illinois is feeling a serious drag in the first BCS standings. The Huskies opened with a schedule rank of 100, while two computers have the team ranked No. 19 and No. 27.

The sense is Northern Illinois, even if it keeps winning, cannot improve its position much unless several schools ranked ahead of the Huskies suffer defeats.

Cowen thinks the unfolding saga of Northern Illinois proves the non-BCS case as negotiations for a new BCS contract move forward.

“Whether intentional or not, and I don’t want to attribute motive here, I think the BCS rankings, because of the strength of schedule component, is skewed toward BCS schools,” he said.

Of course, the BCS standings were created by BCS schools.

In the legal battle against the big boys, Northern Illinois could be Norma Rae.

When Ted Kennedy stares down Cowen at Senate hearings next week, it would be helpful for Cowen to have the Northern Illinois wallet schedule in his hip pocket.

Of the four remaining Division I-A schools without a loss, two are from non-BCS conferences: Northern Illinois and Texas Christian, a Conference USA team that debuted at No. 15 in the first BCS standings.

Cowen knows a Northern Illinois defeat this weekend would hurt his case.

“But I would also hate to think, quite honestly, that if they lost that somehow that dilutes the argument,” he said. “There’s no question they’re helping us, and TCU in their own way is helping us. I do hope both schools run the table and then we’ll see what happens.”

Look Out Below

The Miami-led defections of three Big East schools to the Atlantic Coast Conference have, predictably, caused a ripple effect that was probably best explained by Charles Darwin.

You know, the strong eat the weak, and the weak get weaker.

In terms of college football, this may not good news for the Sun Belt Conference.

How it will shake out: To ensure its survival, the Big East in November will announce it is taking from Conference USA: Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul (in basketball). Central Florida may also eventually come along for the Big East ride.

In a preemptive move, Conference USA has already lured Rice, Southern Methodist and Tulsa from the Western Athletic Conference.

This week, WAC Commissioner Karl Benson responded by brazenly targeting several Sun Belt schools to replace his departed schools.

Schools on the WAC wish list included New Mexico State, Utah State, Idaho, North Texas, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Lafayette and Arkansas State.

Benson said the WAC did membership analysis on these schools two years ago.

“This isn’t first time the WAC has explored the list of those schools,” he said.

Benson may try to lure as many as five Sun Belt teams to get WAC membership up to 12.

The Sun Belt, not surprisingly, was angered by Benson’s public cherry-picking.

“He’s made a couple of bold statements during all of this,” Sun Belt spokesperson Judy Wilson said Wednesday. “That’s fine.”

The Sun Belt conference had visions of expanding from eight to 15 schools, but now the Sun Belt’s ultimate goal is survival.

With few options, the conference may have to replenish its ranks by attracting teams looking to move up from lower divisions; Florida Atlantic, Florida A&M; and Western Kentucky are three possibilities.

“We’re planning on sticking together,” Wilson said.

We’ll see.

Hurry-Up Offense

* More on Northern Illinois at Bowling Green: The last time two ranked MAC teams met was Nov. 5, 1973, when No. 17 Miami of Ohio played No. 19 Kent State.... If you have some free time, check out the disparity in Jeff Sagarin’s popular computer rankings. To stay in the BCS, Sagarin was forced to furnish separate ratings that do not reflect margin of victory. So, this week, Northern Illinois is No. 27 in his regular ratings but No. 8 in his BCS rankings. Conversely, Florida is No. 8 in his regular ratings but 26 in his BCS. Make sense?

* You may wonder why USC is not receiving any quality win points for beating Auburn, which was No. 6 in the Associated Press preseason poll. Quality win points are only awarded for victories against schools that finish in the top 10 of the final BCS standings. Auburn lost its first two games but has since won five in a row. Should Auburn go on to win the SEC title, the Tigers could conceivably finish in the BCS top 10 and, thus, USC would get bonus points.

* The Butkus Award committee made a mistake in omitting UCLA senior linebacker Brandon Chillar from its list of final 10 candidates. The Butkus award is presented to the nation’s top linebacker. Chillar is leading the Pacific 10 in tackles, averaging 11.6 a game. USC’s Matt Grootegood, who was named a Butkus semifinalist, is averaging 5.7 tackles a game. Both players deserved to make it.

* Throw me the money: We’re not so sure Boston College is going to enjoy its lame-duck status in the Big East. During last week’s loss at Syracuse, Orangemen fans chanted “ACC, ACC,” and some even threw dollar bills at Eagle fans.

* Pittsburgh sophomore receiver Larry Fitzgerald may not win the Heisman Trophy, but he’s having a brilliant year. Not only is Fitzgerald’s 144.8 yards-a-game average leading the nation, he also has 13 touchdowns. The school record is 23, held by Tony Dorsett in 1976.