While scolding his team for a lack of focus in practices leading up to their 1991 National Chamionship game against Colorado, Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz was caught on film stressing the caliber of the CU squad by reminding the Irish they weren't playing aginst Kansas State. While he definitely had a point the Buffs weren't the all-time losing football program that Kansas State was, his statement could be viewed as prophetic for what every coach prepping their team for a NT game from that time forward could also yell at their own teams......we aren't playing Kansas State.....seemingly regardless or whether Kansas State deserved to be a NT game participant or not. And the same can basically be said for any coach of a big time bowl game team. Kansas State, and many teams in a similar position to them, do not belong, apparently simply because they "have never been there before."
There are very few non-TV execs, bowl representatives or Rose Bowl parade watchers that still view the current bowl structure as a sane set-up. The three letter acronym 'BCS' has turned into a four letter joke. The trouble remains, this is still the system we have and the system by which college programs are viewed and measured. There is great angst every December when teams get shafted by the system but, by the next fall, all is forgotten and the BCS game participants are allowed to place those games in their history books, allowing for increased recruiting, increased leverage in TV game coverage and contract negotiations and all the other benefits that come from the increased exposure for their brand.
This brings me back to Kansas State and Notre Dame. A survey of casual college football fans would likely result with a conclusion the Irish have the better program, hands down. I mean, they have the national titles, Touchdown Jesus and Rudy. They have multiple Heisman winners. Coaches who transcend sports and time. For crying out loud.....they have gold in their helment paint! Of course they are the better program. Always have been, always will be.
And, while they have struggled in recent times, they still have played in three BCS level bowl games since the inception of the BCS in 1998. So, that can't be all bad. Where is the argument?
Well, let me start by reviewing the win/loss records of the Irish and Wildcats for the last 20 years (1992-2011). Surely this proves the Domers dominance. Uh, not really. The Wildcats have actually won 12 more games in that time frame. (Of course, the world knows this is simply based on the cupcake schedule played by Kansas State. We'll likely get to disputing that fact in future posts.) This 'cupcake conondrum' is partially proven false by the fact the Wildcats have finished ranked in the final BCS bowl six times since that 1998 start. Six times. In fourteen years. Not bad for the top losing program of all-time. The trouble for the Cats - financially, recruiting wise and in terms of national perception - is they have only been able to convert one of those six qualifying seasons into actaully participating in a BCS game. One. Out of six. And that one happens to be the year they won the Big 12 championship, which locked them into a BCS game. (Amazing the powers that be couldn't have figured a loop hole out of that one.)
Notre Dame, on the other hand, has finished ranked in the final BCS poll four times. In three of those years they have waltzed right in to a BCS bowl. Three out of four.....versus one out of six. Why the difference? Sure, Notre Dame has the extra benefit that allows/requires them to be selected should they place at a certain ranking, but this isn't simply a 'Notre Dame thing'. Michingan has also qualified the same number of times as the Cats....six. They have converted those six seasons into four BCS bowls. The reasoning for both Notre Dame and Michigan getting in and Kansas State being left out boils down to "well, they are Notre Dame and Michigan and Kansas State is.....well.....still Kansas State."
It's as if some all-powerful being stopped the evolutionary clock in the college football world back in the 1970's. Those teams that had made their mark before this time would always be regarded as supreme to the teams that had struggled up to this date. No amount of top level play in Manhattan, KS, on the blue turf in Idaho or on numerous campuses in between will allow for the good old boys club to be infiltrated. The increase in money, student enrollment, national perception and, most importantly in these times of conference realignments.....stability.....that would have come with Kansas State playing in those same four BCS games Michigan was allowed to be involved in, will never be known and never be recovered.
Unfortunately, future generations of Wildcat fans will forever be chained to the results of contests that occurred long before their births. Their grandfather's and great-grandfather's generations simply failed to set them up. Who knew contests played in leather helments in front of sparse crowds of pre-WWII would weigh so heavily on universities and teams 70 years later? Someone should chisel Lou Holtz's declaration in granite to make sure it is remembered and used by coaches for the next millenium....."This is the national championship game....we are not playing Kansas State!"
-- Joseph Denn
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