Amid the morass of college football scandals that have unfolded in recent months, there is one man who loves the sport who has benefitted greatly from the ongoing debacles at Ohio State and Miami and North Carolina and USC.
Bill Hancock.
Hancock is the genial executive director of the so-called Bowl Championship Series, which is the ongoing scandal in college football that is still being perpetrated on players, coaches and fans alike much the same way reality TV continues to be a pox that simply won’t go away.
This fall, Hancock’s bosses — the BCS presidents — have conspired to keep the wolves away from his door. First, many of them have allowed their athletic programs to run completely amok. The two people who symbolize what the BCS stands for are, without question, Miami President Donna Shalala, who did everything but rename her school “Shapiro U” while currently jailed booster Nevin Shapiro was lavishing money on her and the one-time “U,” and, of course, Ohio State President Gordon Gee, whose two trademarks are his bowtie and his foot planted firmly inside his mouth.
It was Gee who made himself the Neville Chamberlain of college athletics last spring when he was asked if he would consider firing Jim Tressel as football coach and he replied with a straight face, “Fire him? I just hope he doesn’t fire me.”
The shame of it is that Tressel didn’t stay at Ohio State long enough to get around to firing Gee before Tressel left in disgrace. Of course, the NCAA, led by its top stooge, President Mark Emmert, has been so busy calling meetings and being shocked to learn that cheating is going on that it has yet to take any action against anyone — and will probably come down with a really hard wrist slap when the time finally comes.
Instead it has been left to Roger Goodell, who at last glance was running the NFL, to impose any discipline on Tressel and Terrelle Pryor, his oft-tattooed quarterback. Goodell suspended both for five games when they fled Ohio State for jobs in the NFL.
Maybe Goodell can do something about the BCS. You can bet that Emmert won’t at any point in this lifetime. All of which brings us back to Hancock and the BCS.
If it is fall and the leaves are turning it must be time for the BCS apologists to begin to justify the inevitable championship game matchup that won’t involve anyone from a non-BCS Conference. The Indianapolis Colts have a better chance of playing in the so-called championship game than Boise State.
If you want to watch a Sunday night comedy that will split your sides without a laugh track, tune in the next few weeks to the unveiling of the weekly BCS standings on ESPN.
There are now eight undefeated teams left after Oklahoma and Wisconsin spit the bit late Saturday night: LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Clemson, Kansas State, Boise State and Houston.
LSU and Alabama play in two weeks and Oklahoma State and Kansas State play one another next month too. That will leave no more than six unbeatens — four from BCS conferences. What Hancock and cohorts would like to see happen is for two of those four to still be standing on Dec. 4 so the BCS can pat Boise on the head (again) and say: “Nice job, little Broncos. Now go to your room and play so the adults can talk.” In Boise’s case its room will probably take the form of a bowl game against the Big East champion — which will be a team good enough to finish about fourth in the Mountain West. Maybe.
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