The Campus Sports Guy
Bobcat boycott
By Corey Ryan, Sports Editor
September 3, 2007 | 12:06 p.m.
So I didn’t go to the opening week game against the high-flying spread attack of the Bulldogs, but I have my reasons.
The first weekend of college football didn’t disappoint, if you actually got to watch the Appalachian State incident, as I’m sure Michigan fans will be referring to it. I still can’t believe they didn’t just fire Lloyd Carr after the game.
That is all beside the point.
With the addition of a mandatory 12th game and the permission to schedule division 1-AA teams, also known as the Championship Sub=Division, programs across the country decided to use week one as a preseason game.
Youngstown State at Ohio State, Murray State at Louisville, Arkansas State at Texas, all of these games were scheduled as JV scrimmages because in college football, every game is a playoff game.
Just ask Michigan, the equivalent to a no. 1 seed losing to the no. 16.
In terms of scheduling philosophy, here is the policy of scheduling that athletic director Kirby Hocutt told me last season.
Play a Championship Division team, one BCS conference game on the road and the other two non-conference games are to be against other mid-major programs that provide a legit match-up.
This season the Bobcats had Garner-Webb. The two competitive mid-major games are Louisiana-Lafayette next week and home against Wyoming in three weeks. Virginia Tech is the money game in two weeks.
Here’s why this doesn’t work.
Even if the Bobcats run the table, something that will happen before hell freezes over but after I have a threesome with the Jessicas (Alba and Simpson), with this scheduling philosophy there still left out of the BCS. Mid-American Conference teams make post-season bowl games on the strength of how they play in the conference, not by adding that ninth win in week one against a joke of an opponent.
Again, my apologies to Michigan fans, who will be meeting Wednesday night in Baker Center to lace up their Nike sneakers, drink the red Kool-Aid, slice of their genitals and join the Halley-Bop Comet Suicide Cult.
So with the opportunity to play anyone in the country, because teams are looking to soften their non-conference schedules with MAC teams (see Ohio State), why is the Green-and-White playing these measly games?
I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but after the Illinois game last year, which Ohio won, the football offices had more plasma televisions then Vinny Chase’s Aquamansion.
Those games make money, something the athletic department has been having trouble securing as of late (see sport cuts and Robert Andrey’s inside pockets).
I hate how big conference teams, Ohio State included, decided to punk out like Tayshaun Prince when Lebron was driving to the basket, but at least it makes sense to me. Without a postseason tournament, every game is must win.
If the Buckeyes run the table, they will play in a National Championship despite playing a MAC non-conference schedule. Those programs don’t need money because they are earning revenues in the millions.
I can support a boring football team filled with good guy seniors just trying to secure their legacy, which is what last year’s team was. However, I am having trouble supporting an athletic department that just doesn’t get it.
There are only a few times I have used the boycott technique, the ultimate form of protest. Three times come to mind: freshman year when my RA tried to get me to walk in a mass group of freshman sheep during the inaugural weekend, last year when Quiznoes took the chicken-cabo off the menu and Colin Farrell movies after seeing Alexander.
I’ll end the boycott in three weeks when the Bobcats come back to campus, but it’s getting more and more difficult to not cross the line separating boycott and abandonment.