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SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE
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Pirate Notebook No. 275
Tuesday, August 2, 2006
By Denny O'Brien |
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Parity hindering one of
league's key pursuits
©2006 Bonesville.net
DALLAS — Ask each of Conference USA's 12
head coaches, and they all will agree: There is no clear-cut favorite to
take home the league title in 2006.
In a conference entering its 11th season of
college football, that has been the common theme since its inception.
Parity, not a dynasty, has ruled C-USA on the gridiron, and it is a big
reason the league's perception within the national media is weighted heavily
toward mediocrity.
"When you look around the room at these
tables, it is an unbelievable conference," East Carolina coach Skip Holtz
said at the league's annual media gathering. "It's very competitive. Look at
Central Florida and what they did a year ago.
"The difference between the top and the
bottom is not very big. The difference is not very great at all. In this
conference, there is no team that you look at and say 'that should be a
definite win'."
And that's a problem.
For C-USA to gain more national attention,
it desperately needs a couple of thoroughbreds to gallop away from a
dead-heat pack. Until then it will remain under the curse that parity can
place on a sport when it sticks around for extended periods of time.
It happened to a certain degree in the NFL.
Former commissioner Pete Rozelle was so obsessed with leveling the playing
field that the end result was a severe watering down of the competition.
While that mission hasn't hurt the league's ratings, it has stripped away
some of the glamour and reduced the product's quality as a whole.
Something similar occurred with ACC
expansion two season ago. Now instead of boasting an annual national
contender, balance has made it unlikely that the ACC will produce another
football dynasty capable of battling regularly for No. 1.
That's not to say that the ACC isn't a
better all-around league post-expansion — because it is. But improvement
here is packaged with the reality that the league champion is more likely to
finish the season with three losses than none.
That scenario should sound familiar to
C-USA.
"In some years, you've got very competitive
programs and a lot of parity," C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky said. "In
other years, you have a couple of dominant programs that do break out.
That's just the natural cycle that we're in.
"There's a great upside to having a couple
of lead programs, who have success in the non-conference and then get better
and better in the conference. That would be a great story for our
conference."
It surely would.
Imagine the exposure if Texas-El Paso
breezed through a non-conference schedule that included New Mexico and Texas
Tech, and then darn near ran the table against a tough C-USA gauntlet.
Or what if East Carolina opened the season
by sinking Navy and later posted consecutive wins over the Virginias before
clamping down on the meat of the league schedule?
The result in either case would be a new
media darling for ESPN to embrace, along with added clout for a conference
that has struggled to gain mention in the national polls.
Look no further than the Mountain West
Conference for concrete evidence. Though there essentially is no difference
in quality between the MWC and C-USA, the Mountain West is widely considered
the better league thanks to a top-heavy setup that includes Texas Christian
and Utah.
Likewise for the WAC. While it has only two
quality programs worth mentioning — Fresno State and Boise State — that
apparently is enough for it to be considered on par with C-USA, if not
better.
What is most ironic in those scenarios is
the fact that C-USA has been able to secure better television coverage and
more postseason opportunities for its members. Credit that to the shrewd,
yet underappreciated dealings of Banowsky.
With that in tow and the membership now
basking in stability, it's tempting to think the next step for C-USA is to
land an invitation to the BCS buffet. But first it needs a club that is
pesky enough to nibble for crumbs on an annual basis.
That type of consistency from a pair of
C-USA programs would greatly improve the league's national standing.
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02/23/2007 02:03:14 AM |
