Sportsmanship Gets Stuffed
It stinks when an overwhelming favorite runs up the score on a hapless opponent.
Though padding the victory margin never has been a particularly gracious practice, it qualifies as a worse offense this college football season. This, of course, is the season of good sportsmanship. In this new scheme, a player can be flagged for genuflecting if his deep-knee bend is interpreted as a taunt or an egotistical display. Taking off a helmet in an untimely fashion now would rate as the biggest distraction since Lady Godiva. The decorum of good sportsmanship insists upon no such shows.
But then you have shows such as Florida State 77-17 over North Carolina State. And Nebraska 77-28 over Arizona State. It probably is understandable that Nebraska saw fit to win by only 49; the Cornhuskers likely were saving something for their next opponent - big, strong Pacific.
Yes, oceans of hypocrisy unrolled Saturday, if college football was supposed to be showing off a new slant on sportsmanship. Or, perhaps, the nation’s top-ranked teams simply lost their rule books and thought, “First team to 77, wins.”
The problem is that it no longer is a case of running up the score unless a team wins by at least seven touchdowns. These slaughters do nothing to promote good sportsmanship. The apologists will tell you that the margin of victory is almost as important as the victory, because teams have rankings and post-season goals to protect.
Texas A&M, at least, had the good grace to beat Tulsa by the modest margin of 52-9. It is beginning to look as if a 43-point victory will be characterized as a “squeaker” or a “narrow escape.”
In a sampling of other notable barnburners, Colorado won by 52 over Northeast Louisiana and Penn State topped Temple by the same 66-14 final. Notre Dame edged Vanderbilt, 41-0. In the season’s first meeting of Top 10 teams, Florida beat Tennessee, 62-37, but the Gators needed a rally, which excuses that game from our running-up-the-score Most Blatant Offenders list.
Somebody out there will be stomping around about now, snorting and snarling, “Doesn’t she know these teams have to win big to impress the poll voters, who ultimately decide the national champion? Doesn’t she know a team must allow its stars to get the big stats to contend for the Heisman and other individual awards that bring glory to a program?”
Of course, no one is unaware of the pressure for a team to protect itself in the rankings and help promote its candidates for special honors.
And when you have the oddsmakers setting lines on college football games, the pressure to cover becomes difficult to ignore. The lines on college games are no secret. Though the odds, of course, are for recreational use only, they are out there, chatted up and rehashed. Once a team publicly is declared a five-touchdown favorite, any victory margin smaller than that smacks of a favorite that maybe had its hands full. No team wants to look like anything less than its pre-game hype.
To steal a cliche, a team can send a message with a lopsided win. This message reaches the poll voters and bowl and sponsor types. It reaches the next opponent, the team’s conference rivals down the road, and the alumni.
No way do I mean to suggest that running up the score has no purpose. I mean to suggest that it stinks, despite its purposes. And it gives good sportsmanship a kick in the stomach, to boot.
I concede that college football scheduling - a tricky, difficult business that requires advance planning - often produces some hideous mismatches.
Coaches who have won by a landslide afterward might say they tried every possible substitution pattern and still kept scoring. They didn’t mean it; it just happened.
But they probably did mean to send that message to the poll voters - a memo with a little more oomph.
Florida State and Nebraska are becoming famous for their all-blowout 1995 title drives. Florida State did send a written apology after it embarrassed Duke. Then on Saturday, the Seminoles sent a 77-point message, which emphatically told sportsmanship where to go.