RALEIGH, N.C. — For all of us who think we have the Texas-vs.-Alabama football game figured out, the truth is we probably don’t.
The same goes for most college bowl games, not just the one for the Bowl Championship Series title. Evidence of that surfaced in the first bowl this year - 13-point underdog Wyoming’s victory Saturday over Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl.
Including Middle Tennessee’s victory over Southern Mississippi in Sunday’s New Orleans Bowl and BYU’s easy victory over Oregon State in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Bowl, the underdogs got off to a 3-1 start. The exception was Rutgers’ 45-24 rout of Central Florida in the St. Petersburg Bowl, a game in which the Scarlet Knights were favored by all of two points.
Bowl games, almost from their beginning decades ago, routinely defy the logic of regular season.
The reason for it is simpleenough - dynamics can change radically during the days and weeks that separate season finales from bowl appearances. Almost everything is subject to that change: timing, confidence, momentum, even coach-player communication.
With the mindless proliferation of lollipop early-season scheduling by many national heavies, bowls have taken on the unpredictable nature that once marked regularseason openers.
The perfect example last season was the bewildered expression on Alabama coach Nick Saban’s face during the first quarter of Utah’s 31-17 Sugar Bowl victory. You could almost hear Saban asking himself, “Who stole my team, and where did they hide it?”
After Oklahoma’s 13-2 Orange Bowl victory over Florida State for the 2000 BCS championship, Seminoles Coach Bobby Bowden was asked what happened to his offense.
“Dadgummed if I know,” he said.
The Seminoles had completed theregular season with a 30-7 victory over Florida and came in averaging 33 points per game. The real capper was that Bowden was only slightly more surprised than Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, who sized up the low-scoring outcome as “strange.”
Carl Torbush, in his first game as North Carolina’s coach, came across as the next Knute Rockne. Carolina’s 42-3 victory over Virginia Tech in the 1998 Gator Bowl came after the Tar Heels had failed to score more than 20 points in four of their last five regular-season games under Mack Brown.
The final score of last year’s Sun Bowl was Oregon State 3, Pittsburgh 0. The over-under betting line set by Las Vegas oddsmakers was 48. Oregon State came in averaging 31 points and giving up 24 per game. The Panthers had averaged 27 and surrendered 21.
It’s all something to keep in mind during the coming couple of weeks.
At least two or three teams that couldn’t pass a lick in regular season will throw for 300 yards, and some other teams that couldn’t stop anyone will suddenly look like Oklahoma that night against FSU.
By the time Texas and Alabama kick off on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif., any meaningful residue from the Longhorns’ victory by way of divine intervention over Nebraska in the Big 12 championship or from the Tide’s SEC title-game romp past Florida will be faint at best and probably nonexistent.
The tendency is to think Texas, a 4-point underdog, is lucky just to be in the game. Brown’s team generally was outplayed by Texas A&M, and that was a week before the famous game-clock reset saved the night against Nebraska.
Alabama, meanwhile, has been endlessly serenaded by delirious fans in houndstooth hats and sent Mark Ingram to New York to accept the Heisman Trophy, completely dominating the presentation show.
So mix all of that together, and what do we get? Dadgummed if I know.
Sports, Pages 19 on 12/25/2009