Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508300021
SECTION: COLLEGE FOOTBALL PAGE: CF-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is the committee that sanctions postseason football for the NCAA. It is a group - including Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine - that made a far wiser move by permitting a bowl game in Auckland, New Zealand, after the 1996 season.
As for overtime in bowl games, it's necessary in only one situation - if two teams are playing for the national championship. Since there is no playoff in Division I-A yet, and since the new bowl alliance still doesn't include the granddaddy of them all, there may not be a Poll Bowl.
The decision on breaking ties goes hand-in-hand with the arrival of the new and improved alliance, a welcome and more lucrative addition that is not to be confused with the old coalition, which was similar. If the NCAA committee wants to break a tie in the Fiesta or whichever game in a season is the alliance title game, that makes sense.
However, does the Independence Bowl need overtime? Wouldn't you rather spend those extra minutes in the ArkLaTex in one of those floating casinos? How about the Liberty Bowl? Wouldn't you rather go to Graceland?
I might not argue about extending the Aloha Bowl. Any time spent in Hawaii is quality time.
College football games are long enough, thanks to too many clock stoppages. The games have gotten so long that TV executives complain they are testing the time-slot boundaries of 31/2 hours. The game would do well to follow the clock operation of its NFL brethren.
Bowl games, many with halftimes right out of Disney, are even longer. Do those games - of which there are about seven or eight too many anyway - need to be decided by overtime, and an artificial OT at that?
Yes, artificial. The bowls won't be playing sudden-death. They'll use the same tie-breaker the NCAA uses in playoffs in lower divisions, the one used by some Division I-AA leagues during the regular season, too. The teams alternate possessions from the opponent's 25-yard line, getting an equal number of possessions, until someone finishes with a lead.
This also is how the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in Salem will be decided if it ends in a tie.
Zzzzzzzz. Sorry, I dozed off after that coin flip.
Does it really matter who wins or loses the Carquest Bowl? Coaches - unless you're Bobby Bowden, who wins almost every bowl Florida State reaches - don't recruit by saying, ``We won the [Fill In the Blank] Bowl.'' They say, ``We've gone to [fill-in-the-number] straight bowls, son.''
Do you think George Welsh tells Virginia prospects his program is 1-4 in bowls since 1989. No, he tells them the Cavaliers have been to five bowls in six seasons. Frank Beamer sells Virginia Tech's back-to-back bowl trips for the first time in history, not the Hokies' Gator Bowl bouncing by Tennessee.
Besides, history screams that breaking ties in bowls isn't exactly a pressing matter. That aforementioned granddaddy, the Rose Bowl, first was played in 1902 and has finished every season since 1915. There has been one tie, in 1927.
Since 1935, the Sugar Bowl has had one tie, and it wouldn't have had that if Pat ``Tie'' Dye hadn't been coaching Auburn to not lose to Syracuse in the '88 game. The Orange Bowl hasn't had a tie in its six-decade history. Nor have the Liberty, Aloha, Hall of Fame (now Outback Bowl), Freedom, Copper and Carquest in their shorter tenures.
The only Cotton Bowl tie was a scoreless one between Air Force and Texas Christian in 1959. There have been only two ties in 60 years in the Sun Bowl - a name it takes again after John Hancock dropped sponsorship - including the 1940 thriller between Arizona State and Catholic. It was 0-0.
In the past decade, there have been only three bowl ties. Let's hope that trend continues. The world doesn't need more four-hour bowl games.
by CNB