Scheduling patsies bad for college football

ALAN GOLDENBACH The Bronx Bomber

Was that a rabbit punch coming from John Cooper at the Michigan football program?

The Ohio State coach had some choice words about non-conference schedules, which often make or break a team's season.

"I don't know a lot of people who want to go out and play a real tough non-conference schedule because of the strength of the schedule in our conference," Cooper said. "Some athletic directors want to play tough non-conference schedules and some don't."

Wonder what school he had in mind? Hmm. What team plays a non-conference schedule year in and year out that is as tough as they come by? Just who is that little devil Cooper is talking about?

Cooper, with all due respect, has gradually improved the rigor of the Buckeyes' non-conference schedule over the years since he arrived in Columbus in 1988. This year he has respectable foes in Arizona and Wyoming to compensate for patsies Bowling Green and Missouri.

But Ohio State's first two games last season were against Rice and Pittsburgh, two teams - albeit, comparable to high school teams - that somehow got snubbed come bowl time.

Against Rice, Cooper politely halted the bludgeoning at 70-7. The following week, however, the Panthers weren't so lucky, getting humiliated, 72-0, because Cooper felt a larger margin of victory was the only remedy for his team's drop in the polls. The Buckeyes actually dropped a spot in the AP poll, from No. 9 to 10, after the Rice game.

The victory over the Panthers concluded a four-year series Cooper scheduled with Pittsburgh in which the Buckeyes won all four games by an average score of 57-11.

There are three kinds of approaches athletic directors and football coaches take when preparing their non-conference schedules: the bully, the crybaby and the wannabe .

The bully is the one popularized by Cooper, and even more abused by the likes of Florida, which just slaughtered Central Michigan, 82-6, last weekend. This is the type of schedule where you play teams on which your 5-foot-8 cousin is the starting left tackle and the team nickname is something you'd find in an aquarium. The bully is able to run up ridiculous numbers in games like these: 500 yards rushing, 15 sacks, seven touchdown passes ... in the first half.

Then there's the crybaby. This approach is taken by teams like Rice and Pittsburgh, which want the national recognition, but are a couple of players - like Peyton Manning and Charles Woodson - away from getting to that point. So the brilliant athletic directors schedule opponents that can easily tear limbs off your starting quarterback with the hope of gaining national respect when the score is kept to a lower margin than expected.

Not surprisingly, Rice and Pittsburgh are still routinely the butt of all jokes when they roll into opposing towns - indicative of this approach not working.

Finally, there's the wannabe, the category in which Michigan seems to fall year after year. This only applies to teams that are good, but not great. You plan a schedule packed with tough opponents. You may win some, you'll probably lose one or two.

Regardless, the intention here is to show the national pollsters that you have some chutzpah, that you're not afraid to chance a 9-2 record by going up against the nation's best. The goal, ultimately, is to win sympathy points with pollsters.

Does it work? Sometimes, but only if you have shown a winning tradition sometime in the past. Like Michigan. Like Notre Dame. Like Southern Cal.

"If you're going to be judged on the basis of your won-loss record, you better schedule some of those non-conference opponents at home," said Cooper, justifying the presence of such tomato cans on the schedule, "because you're going to lose to some of those conference teams when you have to go on the road and play them."

Cooper asked why Big Ten teams don't schedule opponents from the Mid-American Conference (home of Eastern Michigan) more often. As if a regional rivalry with such cupcakes is necessary.

"Bowling Green, Akron, Toledo and Miami (Ohio) are some pretty competitive teams and better than people realize," he said.

Good thing Cooper wasn't strapped to a polygraph, because a line that blatant isn't just false, it's insulting.

Yes, the Big Ten is a heck of a conference, probably the second-best in the nation after the Southeastern. But scheduling the likes of Rice and Pittsburgh, and there are worse, is an insult to the institution that is college football.

Only 112 schools are powerful and wealthy enough to compete at the Division I level as opposed to the 300-plus teams that play Division I men's basketball. Tearing apart such lowly opponents will only force them from the ranks of Division I and erode what is a fabulous sport.

- Alan Goldenbach can be reached via e-mail at agold@umich.edu

09-10-97