Virginia's football season has been outstanding. Featuring one of the youngest and least experienced lineups in the nation, the football team has made many critics eat their words and scratch their heads over how Virginia ended up playing so well. Picked to finish second to last in the Atlantic Coast Conference before the season even started, the football team went on to earn second place in the ACC. Unfortunately, the football team's success did not factor into the most important part of the season: bowl election for the postseason. The football team has been snubbed for prestigious bowls in favor of teams that had worse conference records and were beaten by the Cavaliers during the regular season. The Atlantic Coast Conference must rewrite their league rules to make the bowl election process fair and base bowl bid consideration solely on regular season records.
The football team's success has translated into a coach of the year election for Al Groh and offensive player of the year for quarterback Matt Schaub, as well as recognition for many other standouts. The University's football team did not qualify for the highest bowl possible --
which would be one of the four championship bowls -- because it did not finish first. But the team's second place tie with Maryland did make it possible for Virginia to be featured in the second best bowl game, the Gator Bowl. Virginia should have been picked for the Gator bowl, which is supposed to feature the No. 2 ACC team, after U.Va beat Maryland.
Yet, the Gator bowl chose North Carolina State, even though it is the third place team in the ACC and was beaten by both of the teams tied for No. 2, Maryland and Virginia. The Gator bowl was decided days before Virginia played their last season game and Maryland played their last conference game, which could have affected the standings and tied Maryland with NC State for third place in the conference.
Virginia could have then qualified for the next best bowl, the Peach Bowl. The bowl's organizers announced that they had passed over Virginia and chosen Maryland, which Virginia beat by 35 points this season. The announcement came right before the football team's last game against Virginia Tech. Although Maryland had a better overall record, it had been bolstered by wins against less competitive Division II schools, unlike Virginia, which played one of the hardest schedules in the nation including four out-of-conference teams that were ranked when Virginia played them.
U.Va. was thrice passed over when the next highest bowl after the Peach, the Tangerine bowl, gave a bid to Clemson. Virginia now is next in line for the Continental Tire Bowl. However, Virginia Tech may also qualify for this bowl, which would most probably take Virginia out of it, because neither team nor the bowl representatives desire a rematch of last Saturday's game. Should Virginia not receive an invite for the Tire Bowl, it may not even be invited to a bowl game, as the least prestigious bowl for ACC teams -- the Seattle bowl -- may be cancelled due to financial difficulties ("NCAA extends olive branch to wobbling bowls," ESPN.com, Dec. 3).
Bowl representatives have treated Virginia's football team unfairly. In a sport where success is supposed to be the measure of teams' worth, money has clouded the vision of many bowl representatives. The Gator bowl has a rule that states it can choose a lower finishing team if that school's location is four hours closer; NC State happened to be the right team for that clause to be enacted ("Lousy system took Pack over Cavs," The Charlotte Observer, Dec. 2). The Peach Bowl had more leeway picking Maryland because of the two-way tie for second place, but considering that U.Va. dismantled the Maryland team, they made the wrong choice. In addition, U.Va. is illogically being penalized for playing a harder schedule. Maryland's better overall record is attributed to the many cupcake teams on their record.
The bowls' motivations for handing out bids boil down to expected revenues. Because N.C. State and Maryland have larger student bodies, this equates to a larger fan base and more ticket sales. It does not seem to matter that Virginia both beat, and had a season that was far superior to, the two teams that were picked ahead of it.
The bowls simply have too much say as to which teams they can pick. Although the bowl representatives should have some sway in selecting teams for their bowls, as Virginia's current predicament clearly shows, if left to their own devices the bowls consider teams' records to be of little value. The ACC handed this unwarranted power of selection to the bowls through flawed league rules, according to the Observer. The ACC must demand that its rules be changed and contracts with bowls be renegotiated as soon as possible in order to make the bowls adhere to the standings as they are, instead of allowing them to snub smaller schools because of projected ticket sales.
It is sadly too late for Virginia to be able to make it to the bowl they deserve, but a change in the contract may prevent unfair choices from happening again should similar circumstances present themselves in the future. As the system stands now, no matter how hard a team in the ACC plays or how successful they are, they have no guarantee to the bowl they deserve unless they are the conference champions. This situation is unwarranted and affects thousands of fans across the nation, and it must be fixed.
(Alex Rosemblat's column appears
Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at arosemblat@cavalierdaily.com.)
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