Realignment might help non-BCS schools storm the gate

College football is the only sport without a Cinderella. Deep down that hurts the sport's soul.

Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer likely won't be carried off the field of a BCS bowl if the Big East breaks up.(AP)

Just in the last year: The Minnesota Wild got to the NHL Western Conference finals with a $10 million payroll. They were trumped by an even better story, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. That was only months after Anaheim's Angels won the World Series. Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl with a journeyman quarterback in coach Jon Gruden's first year.

Where do you want to start with March Madness? The NCAA basketball tournament practically invented the term.

College football, meanwhile, was turned on its ear when an undefeated Big Ten program, clutching six Heismans and representing a school of 50,000 students somehow defeated Miami. What an "upset."

Congratulations, Ohio State. The glass slipper fit.

It's hard to root for a monolith, but you have to admit, the Bowl Championship Series chiefs have built a darn intimidating one. It was less than six months ago that BCS chairman Mike Tranghese did his best Khrushchev routine, figuratively banging his shoe on the podium against the non-BCS schools.

"I'm not a socialist. ..." Tranghese said the morning of the Fiesta Bowl. "They want access. If I were them, I'd want access and money, too. All I said to my schools is, 'I'm not giving them your money.'"

It is more than ironic that a few months later, Tranghese's conference is about to be one of those have-nots. The Big East that produced a football national championship, two women's basketball championships and a men's basketball championship the past two years looks like it won't hold together.

The system is about to reach critical mass. If the ACC expansion goes through, that consolidates the BCS into the top 58 schools, not 63, minus Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, West Virginia and Temple.

The only way the Amputated East holds onto its BCS bid is if it coaxes Notre Dame or Penn State into the fold. That ain't going to happen.

That ostensibly creates another BCS at-large spot. Currently, there is one guaranteed spot for each champion of the six BCS leagues, plus two at-large spots (if Notre Dame doesn't qualify). With one less BCS-viable league, we're going to be looking at guaranteed spots for the champions of the ACC, Big 12, SEC, Pac-10 and Big Ten plus three at-large spots (if Notre Dame doesn't get in).

Could just one of those at-larges be reserved for the 59 schools who have been stratified into non-BCS status?

Already, there has been speculation floating around of a "playoff" between the Conference USA and Mountain West champs for one of those spots. WAC commissioner Karl Benson reiterated Thursday what SportsLine.com reported recently that there is "a sense of understanding by the BCS" involving the non-equity leagues. Whether that results in an automatic berth for the non-BCS leagues is not certain, but at least the climate seems to be changing.

"The hope is rather than maybe the Cinderella, maybe a reasonable chance of starting the season knowing have something to play for," Benson said. "They also recognize it's important for their teams and the health of college football to make sure that the gap doesn't increase and doesn't become two separate divisions."

There is still something radically wrong with a system that allows Wake Forest a chance to play in the Orange Bowl, but Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and West Virginia have practically no shot. Non-BCS schools have to win their conference and finish in the top six of the BCS ratings. It hasn't happened yet.

Send lawyers, funds and money, the spit is about to hit the fan. It seems that something good is about to happen, in some way, for those schools below the BCS line. The ACC expansion means more than half of Division I-A (59 of 117 schools or 50.4 percent) would be shut out of playing in the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls. Not fair? It might not be legal.

Noted sports law expert Gary Roberts of Tulane calls the BCS a "cartel." In fairy tale terms, the Munchkins might be about to bum-rush the Wicked Witch.

"I think it's illegal," Roberts, Tulane's deputy dean of law, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I think it's an anti-trust violation, and I've been saying that for years."

Roberts works at a school that might be the first victim of BCS dominance in the market. Tulane officials are, at this moment, determining whether the school should de-emphasize athletics, mostly because the department has run an annual deficit of $5 million-$7 million for several years.

Green Wave football could drop down to the non-scholarship level in Division III or be dropped altogether. This from a program that five short years ago went 12-0.

There have been excellent programs hitting the glass ceiling almost every year of the BCS. Marshall went 13-0 in 1999 and was excluded. Fresno State came the closest in 2001, starting 6-0 with a relatively strong schedule before finishing 11-3.

Sooner or later, a Marshall is going to play a Miami (of Florida ) in a postseason game. If there is ever going to be a playoff, and it's ever going to be legitimate, inclusion is going to have to happen. It could start with the addition of a permanent at-large spot for the non-equity leagues.

The spot probably won't be worth $13 million and it probably won't draw huge ratings, but for legal, ethical and football reasons, Cinderella has to happen. For every employee who has wanted to slap his boss, for every schmoe who is sick of paying the IRS, for every kid who got beat up by a bully ...

Toledo awaits. If not, the moniker National Champion of 49.5 Percent of the Schools doesn't quite get it.

"There's a lot of good programs out there outside the BCS," said New Mexico athletic director Rudy Davalos, a former member of the NCAA basketball committee. "That would be the true Cinderella, that would be the Gonzaga of college basketball. But with this structure, it's not going to happen."

The hidden BCS argument is that it shouldn't share revenue with schools that don't emphasize football as much. They argue that entry into the BCS fold would allow the second-class citizens to cash a BCS check just by being a member.

Ask Frank Beamer how he feels about the system. The Virginia Tech coach spent 15 years building the Hokies from a little-known Eastern program into a top 10 powerhouse. Now, if ACC expansion goes through, he will be competing for the Liberty Bowl.

That's not fair, or is the situation at Marshall, which is trying to move up instead of being forced down. Coach Bobby Pruett's last three quarterbacks have moved on to the NFL. Since 1996 when Pruett arrived, Marshall is 68-11. Under the current system, it seems ridiculous that I-A's winningest active coach (53-11 since 1997) cannot compete for its biggest prize.

What other credentials do you need? Well, for one, Marshall doesn't play in a major media market. It plays in a mid-major league (MAC), although one that it dominates in.

"Every time there is some (conference) movement, every time there is an earthquake, there is new ground created," Pruett said. "We hope to be part of it."

Unfortunately, hope doesn't pay the bills. In the late 1970s, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was so large that NCAA football divided into I-A and I-AA. The I-AAs immediately were relegated to the poor part of town, shut out from a coming windfall in college football.

The culture was already in place with the old bowl system. It was furthered in 1984 when Oklahoma and Georgia won a Supreme Court decision against the NCAA allowing schools to make their own TV deals. In a sport where the likes of Princeton and Harvard used to be seen on national television, suddenly Notre Dame had its own network.

Stratification came quickly and painfully for those programs not on the express train to major bowl eligibility.

Now it's about to come full circle. The ACC expansion could push the runaway locomotive over a cliff. The monolith could become too bloated. The have-not barbarians are at the gates. Khrushchev is gone and the Big East, as we know it, is going away.

Is it possible that I-A has gotten too big for itself?

The chick in the see-through stilettos wants to know.