With the upset of then-No. 5 Michigan by Appalachian State earlier this year, followed by then-No. 4 Florida’s loss to Auburn two weeks ago and Stanford’s unbelievable victory at then-No. 2 USC last week, you may be thinking that the college football world has been flipped upside-down.
But it hasn’t – it’s just been flattened.
For years now NFL honks have pointed to parity as a separating factor in the quality of entertainment that professional football provides over college football. “Any given Sunday,” has been their motto while powderpuff non-conference games turned into blowouts and BCS conferences had a few sure wins for the top college football teams.
But no more. With the 85-scholarship limit, the college football landscape started to change, a least a little, with traditional powerhouses no longer being able to stockpile all the top-tier talent. But what has changed it so drastically in the last few years? Oregon coach Mike Bellotti says that one factor may be advances in communication, including the Internet.
“The world being a smaller place and kids being able to get information, they feel more comfortable going away from their natural geographic locations,” he said. “Young people now want to play. I don’t think they’re willing to wait as long at other schools and say ‘Well it’s going to be my turn in four years.’ That’s not the case. They want to play right now so a lot of times very good athletes are going to places where they know they can play, which would not have been considered traditional powers…and the equality of talent is very, very good.”
Another factor in the parity we are seeing in college football is coaching innovations. The spread offense that Oregon has run for the last three seasons is one of several ways that smaller programs have found to level the playing field with the traditional powers.
“A lot of people want to talk about the spread offense,” said Bellotti. “It is an equalizer in a sense because you can take a different group of athletes and force a more traditional football team to play in space and do some things that way… Obviously we believe in the benefits of it and a lot of other people do, too.”
No matter the reasons behind the increased parity we are seeing this year, it has definitely improved the overall product that is college football. Every game has always been crucial in college football, but now every game is also a true contest, no matter the rankings or records of the teams taking the field.
I’m sure fans of smaller or less-successful football programs everywhere have new faith that their team can be the next David this weekend when they take on their own Goliath.
But unfortunately for these underdogs, the upsets that have shocked the college football world have also served notice to the traditional powers of college football that they had better bring their best game to the field every weekend, or risk being the next Michigan or USC.
“Typically when you have turnovers or when you have breakdowns in the kicking game you’re susceptible to getting beat no matter where you play,” said Bellotti of USC’s loss to Stanford. “It’s a great lesson for everybody, both ways. If you’re the underdog I think you always believe you can win that football game, and if you’re the favorite you better play to the last second.”
Oregon quarterback Dennis Dixon said of Stanford’s victory over USC, “I was actually shocked. But then again that goes to show that this Pac-10 Conference is something else, and you can’t take anybody lightly. You have to be ready and be fundamentally sound on both sides of the ball every week.”
This has been the Ducks’ mantra week in and week out this season, from Bellotti on down through his staff and the roster, and their absolute refusal to even entertain the notion of looking past any opponent seems to be the only approach that makes any sense in college football these days.
[email protected]