Rhonda Hatcher really wanted to see TCU play last week. Like most fans she was chilling in Fort Worth while her team was making its BCS statement at BYU. A simple thing like TV shouldn't have been a problem in this universe of Internet, dishes, cables and channels.
Actually it was a huge problem, even for Hatcher, who is TCU's faculty athletics representative. She's personally involved as a fan and as an associate professor who has some players in her statistics math class.
"I had to go to a sports bar to watch the game," she said.
Hatcher is special among TCU followers. Because of her math background, she understands the BCS. She might not like it but she can put calculator to numbers and figure out why the Horned Frogs are the highest-ranked non-BCS school in this week's standings (No. 6). She also knows it's likely to stay that way if TCU keeps winning. The Froggies would then play in their first BCS bowl and first major bowl of any kind since the 1959 Cotton Bowl.
What she can't tell you is how TCU won at BYU. A set of electronic circumstances make it doubly hard for TCU to make its case to stay ahead of No. 7 Boise State. Eleven of the Frogs' 12 regular-season games are on television but they can't be seen, at least by a large part of the population. None of the contests are on network television. One was available only online.
The Versus Network, the channel that televised the TCU-BYU game, claims to be seen in 75 million homes. However, DirecTV said in August it dropped Versus because its "overall ratings are poor." Hatcher is among a group of fans who subscribed to DirecTV in order to follow her team. Now it's literally easier to watch fake football (Friday Night Lights on DirecTV) than the real thing.
TCU's situation is not unlike many schools below the BCS conference level. The difference is the situation is critical to what has to be the program's supreme mission down the stretch. With or without TV, to reach its ultimate goal, TCU must preen, brag, make a case for itself in the PR battle to stay ahead of Boise. The computers already love TCU because it plays a stronger schedule. Boise's only hope is to finish ahead of TCU in the polls by a significant margin.
So far it isn't enough. This week Boise is fifth in both human BCS polls, the coaches and Harris Interactive. TCU is sixth and seventh. A segment of the population that could make TCU's case to the world, sportswriters, spends a large segment of time in hotels and press boxes. Few hotels have Versus on their channel lineup. There are fewer press boxes wired for the network.
TCU won't admit it but it is the program's sacred duty to become a highway accident, make everyone slow down to see it. Create a scene, anything to divert attention away from the Broncos.
"If anything," TCU coach Gary Patterson admitted this week, "we've got to make sure the television broadcasts are on and everybody can see it."
Part of this is on the Mountain West Conference itself. Frustrated with playing midweek games, the conference's presidents in 2006 conference presidents broke away from the ESPN cash cow. The league went out and created its own network (The Mtn.). TCU hasn't appeared on network television since 2005. Two of TCU's games are seen on CBS College Sports which has the highest penetration by far of any of the Frogs' rights holders, being available in 85 million homes. Seven other games are on The Mtn. and Versus, a network where, so far, football goes to die.
Boise will be on one of the ESPN networks seven times this season. But in this two-team fashion show, the Broncos are clearly wearing jorts. BCS rules state that only the highest-ranked non-BCS conference school is guaranteed a BCS bowl if it finishes in the top 12 (top 16 if it is ranked higher than one of the power conference champions).
This is particularly galling to Boise State, which is headed for its third undefeated season in the last four. The Mountain West is generally perceived as the best conference outside of the six BCS leagues. This year it is ranked eighth overall among Division I-A conferences in the Sagarin ratings, slightly ahead of the WAC, home of Boise.
TCU is coming off a convincing 38-7 victory at then-No. 16 BYU. ESPN's College GameDay basically televised a two-hour infomercial featuring the schools before the game. Because it won, TCU has grabbed the momentum. Both Boise and TCU have refused to grab the microphone to promote themselves.
"It's a shame that we're having to talk about it," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "Both Boise and TCU have thus far clearly demonstrated that they are two of the top 10 teams in the country. Assuming they both win out, they both should be considered for a national championship. At least both should be playing on New Year's Day."
The Frogs have beaten two BCS conference schools (Virginia and Clemson). Boise beat No. 10 Oregon in the season opener. Since then it has played one team ranked higher than 82nd in the current Sagarin ratings, one of the six BCS computer indexes.
TCU has the added ammunition of having beaten Boise only 10 months ago in the Poinsettia Bowl. OK, so it was only 17-16 but shouldn't it make a difference when things are this close?
"I feel it should," TCU linebacker Tank Carder said.
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| Tank Carder and the Horned Frogs would be well served to howl a lot more about their success. (US Presswire) |
When he got out of the hospital, Carder wasn't cleared for contact so, for a while, he kicked. When he returned to the field for Sweeny (Texas) High School, it was as a quarterback. He is another Patterson gem. The coach specializes in taking players from other positions and turning them into defensive stars. All-American defensive end Jerry Hughes was a star high school tailback.
"I didn't get him [Carder] because he was a good bike rider," Patterson said.
Hatcher can vouch for the program's purity. TCU's academic reputation precedes it. She says she has never met more polite students than the football players. Being a mathematician, she is follower of Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow. Without getting too complicated, Arrow's impossibility theorem actually deals with "preferential voting system."
That sounds a lot like a slice of the BCS.
"I know a little bit about voting theory," Hatcher said. "In college football what you have is not a solvable problem. I enjoy watching the BCS people scrambling to try to fix it every year. They're not going to fix it."
This TCU-Boise race within the (national) race could end up being unseemly, unprofessional and uncomfortable, but it wouldn't be the first time. In 2004, Texas launched an aggressive PR campaign in order to finish above Cal for a BCS berth. The strategy worked but in the aftermath the Associated Press pulled poll out of the BCS, citing journalistic conflicts. It wanted to cover the news, not create it with voting media members.
Texas lost a similar battle last year in trying to convince voters that it deserved to be ahead of Oklahoma and Texas Tech in the messy Big 12 South tiebreaker.
What remains is the biggest conflict of interest since Congress began voting itself raises. The American Football Coaches Association oversees the poll that dumps millions of dollars in schools' coffers and in their coaches' pockets.
"The difference," Hatcher said, "is Congress can get voted out of office."
So who's best? Patterson has said all the right things about Boise. So impressed was he with the Broncos' offense that he used one of their plays to score a touchdown in the BYU game. A couple of weeks ago there was talk of how Boise could get to the national championship game. TCU's BCS margin over Boise, .0138 of a point, might as well be 50 if somebody on campus started screaming from rooftops.
In essence, all TCU has to do is win to clinch that elusive BCS bowl. Payback against No. 19 Utah for last season's bitter 13-10 loss in Salt Lake City is the key to the season on Nov. 14. Meanwhile, the Broncos play only two more teams with winning records.
Part of the reason for staying quiet is not disturbing the delicate balance of the college football universe. TCU has reached this point before in a season, only to blow winnable game. Why upset the BCS gods with BCS chatter?
"I don't think anybody is going to listen to Gary Patterson," the TCU coach said modestly.
Actually, we would love to at least see Gary Patterson's ballot. He is one of the 59 voting coaches who make up one-third of the BCS formula. Patterson said only this week that he voted both teams in the top seven.
"They're a different team, we're a different team [than last season]," the coach said. "That doesn't mean we're not better than we were a year ago."
If only he would yell it and we could see it.
