By JIM LITKE, AP Sports Columnist
Bowl season isn't only about making money.
Sometimes it just seems that way; this time around, for example.
The most interesting stat to come out of the glut of games so far is this:
Six teams went into bowls with an assistant serving as caretaker because the
head coach had either bailed out or been fired, and five of them have already
lost. West Virginia can reverse the trend Wednesday night against Oklahoma in
the Fiesta, but don't count on it.
Nearly all went in as underdogs and the sample is too small to be
scientific. But it suggests that the kids who play for those programs have
already learned an important lesson about loyalty. Even in so-called amateur
athletics there isn't enough of it to go around.
It's one thing to say that coaches and the universities that employ them
have to keep their options open, especially in a business as competitive as
college football. It's another, though, when both sides are so busy shopping
that the very games billed as a reward for all the hard work that went before it
are treated as an afterthought instead.
If you think the message didn't seep down into some locker rooms, you didn't
watch Arkansas' mistake-filled, halfhearted effort in a 38-7 loss to Missouri in
the Cotton Bowl. The Razorbacks committed five turnovers on the field, and the
staff on the sideline performed only slightly better, botching time-out calls at
two critical junctures.
"We did everything poorly," said interim coach Reggie Herring, who was the
team's defensive coordinator until Houston Nutt stepped down at the end of
November. "I'm embarrassed right now."
In what looked ominously like payback, Arkansas junior Darren McFadden
scored the Razorbacks' only touchdown, then dropped the ball and disinterestedly
walked away. Considering McFadden's achievements already -- he was the Heisman
runner-up the past two years and locked up the No. 2 spots on both the
Southeastern Conference's single-season and career rushing lists -- he might have
left school for the NFL after this season, anyway. But it's a safe bet the
season-long, behind-the-scenes tussle that ended with Nutt's departure will make
the decision that much easier.
There's no way to measure whether a missing coach factored into the losses
by UCLA, Texas A&M, Houston and Georgia Tech. Players, in fact, tend to say the
opposite.
"As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that is going on with this team is
what is between the hash marks," UCLA defensive end Bruce Davis said a few days
before the Bruins lost to BYU on a last-second field goal. "We know there is
nothing we can do about what is going on in the administrative offices."
The problem is that no one else seems to be able to do anything about it,
either. Both coaches and administrators say the timing is dictated by the
recruiting schedule. Before signing day rolls around on the first Wednesday in
February, a coach who is moving needs a staff in place. Then he has to convince
those kids who committed to his old program to switch allegiances to his new
address, and try to hang onto the kids who committed to the old coach at his new
program.
So why not simply push signing day back a few weeks, especially now that the
job fair has spilled over into bowl season and made a mockery of the notion that
the postseason is "for the kids"?
Probably because the people who are gaming the system like it just the way
it is. It's the same reason college bowl season exists and college football's
national champion remains as mythical as ever, despite the loud and continuing
cries for a playoff. Coaches and the major conferences they work in are making
money hand over fist.
"I don't know if it would change anything even if you moved recruiting
back," Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops told ESPN.com recently. "When you're changing
jobs, I don't know if the timing is ever very good for it."
Maybe not, but it's rarely been worse. What is supposed to be the best part
of the season is being cheapened. It calls to mind that cynical line from the
movie "North Dallas Forty" when a receiver named Phillip Elliott -- played by
Nick Nolte -- tells the owner he's tired of being exploited.
"Every time I say it's a game, you tell me it's a business. Every time I
say it's a business, you tell me it's a game."
College football bowl season isn't only about making money. Sometimes it just seems that way.
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