Disruptions caused by hurricanes Harvey, Irma help make case for extra bye week
At the NCAA’s annual convention in January, the top legislative committee for Division I floated the idea of a 14-week college football calendar, which would have the practical effect of putting two bye weeks into the schedule for every team in the country.
Like every potential significant change, it has gone through the policy wringer over the ensuing months with various subcommittees discussing positives and potential unintended consequences, including whether that might push preseason practice back into July (something many coaches and probably some conference officials would be against).
While the initial push for a 14-week calendar was rooted in building in extra recovery time for players during the grind of a long season, the extreme weather events that have wreaked havoc with games over the last two weeks have brought a second possible benefit into focus: more flexibility to reschedule games that get canceled.
“The proposal was really directed for health and safety,” said Northwestern athletics director Jim Phillips, who chaired the D-I council until rotating off earlier this year. “But after witnessing how Mother Nature can really cause issues— lightning strikes, hurricanes, travel issues — an additional week might take some pressure off and give flexibility for these types of (occurrences).”
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Though this isn’t the first time hurricanes and other forms of extreme weather have impacted college football schedules — LSU has had a game canceled, moved or rescheduled three consecutive years — the disruptions caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have been massive.
Eight games have been canceled to date, including several key matchups in the American Athletic Conference. Meanwhile, Florida State-Miami was moved to Oct. 7, which was only possible because they shared an open date.
Though hurricane recovery obviously is higher priority than playing a full 12-game football season, there is typically a desire for administrators to try to reschedule games because of the lost revenue both for their athletic department and local businesses that plan around college football games bringing in thousands of visitors.
And in the case of the AAC, canceling a game like Memphis-UCF without the ability to make it up could significantly impact conference title races and postseason opportunities.
Memphis, in fact, got on a plane last Thursday night with the intention of playing at UCF on Friday, landed in Orlando, then turned around and headed home after Florida Gov. Rick Scott closed all public colleges in preparation for Irma.
“I’ve been working with the conference since last Friday to figure out how to reschedule everything and because football season doesn’t have a lot of flexibility,” Memphis athletics director Tom Bowen said. “A second bye week would allow the entire FBS conferences, in my opinion, to deal with the unintended consequences of weather, act of God or act of government. Right now, the way it works is you have one bye week and it’s hard — almost impossible now in our case — without canceling another opponent or removing a non-conference opponent, which isn’t fair to another contractual agreement made years ago with another institution.”
Memphis and UCF managed to reschedule for Sept. 30, the AAC announced Thursday evening. But that move will require other scheduling gymnastics. Memphis had been supposed to play at Georgia State on Sept. 30, and UCF was to host Maine. To make it happen, the AAC will pay the buyout for those non-conference games.
And that would be one of the easier moves, relatively speaking, if the goal was to reschedule as many games as possible. Thursday morning, the AAC announced South Florida-UConn, which was supposed to be last weekend, will move to Nov. 4. But to make that happen, Houston had to move its homecoming game against East Carolina a week later to Nov. 4 and instead go to USF the week before.
Though putting in a second bye week wouldn't necessarily solve the issue, it would at least open up the chess board to possibly move more pieces — which seems like a good idea if you're inclined to believe that climate change will fuel more extreme weather events in the future.
“It creates a whole snowball effect when you only have one bye to get it lined up,” Bowen said. “My colleagues in our conference are going to talk about it in our meetings in November. The majority of games are played in outdoor stadiums, and when dangerous inclement weather happens it really affects football. You’ll see us asking that as a conference because we have five universities affected by Harvey and Irma and last year we had two schools affected. So it’s two seasons we’ve had this dynamic. We’re going to have discussions with commissioner (Mike) Aresco. What are the possibilities here to give some flexibility to reschedule? That’s a good conversation to have.”
COACHING CAROUSEL CLIPS
►The situation at New Mexico, where Bob Davie is under investigation for mistreating players, is worth watching because it’s one of several messes that will have to be cleaned up by incoming athletics director Eddie Nunez, who was hired on Aug. 31.
Former athletics director Paul Krebs, whose exit officially was announced in June as a retirement, oversaw an athletics department that was awash in mismanagement and scandal over allegations that he misused more than $65,000 in public money to pay for athletics department officials and boosters to play golf in Scotland (in violation of state law) and then didn't fully disclose it to the university.
Meanwhile, the school announced in July — after local reporters began digging around in open records — that it had discovered $432,000 in uncollected payments on suites at its basketball arena.
“(Krebs) just stopped working,” said one person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. That person also told Paste BN Sports that Krebs, on his way out the door, gave multiyear contracts to two of his top deputies — a significant breach of protocol preceding an administrative change.
NMfishbowl.com, an independent Web site that does investigative reporting on the Lobos athletic department, reported Wednesday that the probe into Davie began following the latest round of athlete exit interviews conducted over the spring.
The person with knowledge of the situation told Paste BN Sports that Nunez, previously the deputy athletics director at LSU, was not informed of the ongoing investigation into Davie when he took the job. But now it could very well be his job to oversee the housecleaning of a department badly in need of professionalism.
Though Davie has taken New Mexico to bowl games each of the last two years, including a nine-win season in 2016, don’t be surprised if this investigation lingers and significantly impacts the direction of the program.
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►One of the most fascinating transactions on the coaching carousel last year happened under the radar, when Mississippi State and Louisville essentially swapped defensive coordinators, Though it’s murky which deal was worked out first, and whether either or both head coaches wanted to make a change, one longtime ACC offensive assistant told Paste BN Sports that Mississippi State clearly upgraded with Todd Grantham while Louisville took a backward step hiring Peter Sirmon. The assistant asked to speak on the condition of anonymity in exchange for candor.
“Personally, I don’t think Sirmon is in the same ballpark, sentence, breath as Todd Grantham,” the assistant said. “I think he was really good and he’d be the first to tell you that, but he really causes problems with how much he blitzes.”
The first big test for that theory will come this weekend, when Grantham’s new defense at Mississippi State hosts LSU and Sirmon and Louisville will try to stop Clemson. Through two games, Mississippi State is No. 6 nationally in total defense at 174 yards per game, albeit against lesser competition in Louisiana Tech and Charleston Southern. Louisville has played Purdue and North Carolina and ranks 72nd, having given up eight offensive touchdowns.
FAUX PAS OF THE WEEK
In a world full of insincere apologies and unnecessary backtracking, Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield probably generated more backlash over his apology for planting the Sooner flag at Ohio Stadium than the act itself.
"It was an emotional game, so after the game I did not mean for it to be disrespectful towards any Ohio State people at all, especially not the team or the players because they're a great team and a great program,” Mayfield told reporters in a video tweeted out by Oklahoma’s official account. “I didn't mean it to be disrespectful at all. We do the flag thing at OU-Texas and so that's just something I got caught up in an emotional win, and yeah, it should have been something I did in the locker room, so I apologize for doing it in the middle of the field.”
No, Baker, you did what was authentic — and most people loved it. There was no need to apologize. Was there even outrage over this among Ohio State fans? You won, so you get to celebrate how you want. Next time, don't apologize.
YOUR WEEKLY HARBAUGH
How much Jim Harbaugh is too much Jim Harbaugh? Well, we’re not there yet. Which is why Amazon Prime Video is doing a documentary on Michigan football this season for release in January 2018. The project was announced Tuesday, and the irony is thick.
Harbaugh runs one of the most secretive, media-unfriendly programs in the country — he wouldn’t even release a depth chart this preseason until a few days before the opener — but is apparently going to allow significant behind-the-scenes access to filmmakers this season to give a window into Michigan football. Which, of course, means Harbaugh believes there will be a recruiting benefit from this.
So even when you think you’ve seen enough of Harbaugh being Harbaugh, there’s always more in reserve.
DUD OF THE WEEK
Whoever made the schedule for Fresno State this season committed college athletics malpractice. Last weekend Fresno State traveled to Alabama, where it got beat 41-10 but picked up a $1.4 million payday. While that may be unsavory, it’s the reality for college sports and financially strapped athletic departments outside the Power Five. You do it, you make the best of the experience and you move on.
But rather than leave well enough alone and prepare for Mountain West play with an easier opponent, Fresno State is turning around this week and playing at Washington, where it will be a 33-point underdog.
Few teams in the country, in any conference, will have a more physically taxing back-to-back than playing two teams who were in last year’s College Football Playoff. And Fresno State, which went 1-11 last season, almost certainly doesn’t have the kind of roster that will be able to endure it without paying a price. Whoever came up with this schedule didn’t have the student-athlete’s best interests in mind.