Tiebreaker’s Flaw Begins Showing Up in Numbers

It hasn’t reached Roger Maris-Babe Ruth status as pain in the asterisks go, but college football’s new tiebreaker system is already causing headaches for NCAA statisticians.

First, may we interject that the tiebreaker has been the best thing to happen to the game since coaches mothballed plaid jackets.

Without the tiebreaker, Air Force doesn’t beat Notre Dame, Arizona State is 9-0-1 and there would be 17 more Division I-A sisters to smooch this season.

Without it, Houston and Southern Mississippi go home last weekend What-iffing? about a 49-49 deadlock.

Instead, Houston won in overtime, allowing Cougar Coach Kim Helton to remark: “It was the most exciting game, not only that I’ve ever seen, but that I’ve ever heard about.”

Ties make fine Christmas gifts, but have no place in this game.

The reason overtime was implemented, of course, was to settle bowl issues, since six Division I-A victories are required for qualification. Heaven forbid Notre Dame should finish 5-4-1 and not be allowed to sign checks over to travel agents.

Yet, while the new tiebreaker is fair, it is flawed.

Case in point: With 25 touchdown passes, California quarterback Pat Barnes is closing in on the Pacific 10 Conference’s season record of 29, set by Arizona State’s Mike Pagel in 1981.

Barnes has two games left to add to the mark (bowl games are kept as separate statistics).

The problem is, four of Barnes’ 25 touchdown passes have come in two overtime games, where the rules are skewed.

In the college system, each team is guaranteed at least one possession at the opponent’s 25-yard line.

Games, theoretically, can continue forever, as Arizona Coach Dick Tomey concluded two weeks ago against California when he went for two rather than endure a fifth overtime possession. The conversion attempt failed, and Arizona lost, 56-55.

But what of those overtime stats?

“Gosh, I’d love to start every drive on the 25,” joked Pagel, now living in Cleveland. “I’d have made the Hall of Fame.”

Pagel has no problem with someone breaking his 15-year-old mark.

“I didn’t even realize I still had the record,” he said.

But Pagel does have an opinion on touchdowns thrown in overtime.

“I don’t agree that those should be part of the record,” he said. “The 29 touchdowns in one season, it’s going to be broken anyway. I just don’t feel it should be part of the record.”

Don’t think the NCAA hasn’t heard about this.

“We discussed it quite a bit,” said Rich M. Campbell, NCAA statistics coordinator for Division I football. “We knew there could be some aberrations of games that might have bearing on stats in overtime. Basically, we thought we should treat it like overtime in basketball.”

But it isn’t like basketball. In basketball, one team doesn’t get to start overtime with the ball in its center’s hands three feet from the basket.

“We didn’t know what to expect the first year,” Campbell said.

The NCAA surveyed press box statisticians before the season and the consensus was to keep overtime stats as part of the official game record.

“I’m sure we’ll sit down at the end of the year and talk about it, to see if we made the right decision,” Campbell said.

Campbell said there are no plans to require asterisks for records aided with overtime statistics.

Pagel favors a change in the system.

“Maybe the OT needs to be changed,” he said. “I like the NFL overtime. Sudden death. It gives them the whole quarter.”

Beg to differ. The college system is superior to the NFL’s coin-flip crapshoot.

But the statistic issue does need to be addressed before some tailback rushes for 1,000 yards.

In a game.

LET’S GO BOWLING

Those Michigan and Tennessee losses last weekend sure threw the bowl alliance into a tizzy.

“I think I’m confused,” John Junker, Fiesta Bowl executive director, said Monday.

Michigan, upset by Purdue, and Tennessee, upended by Memphis, had been considered teams most likely to fill two at-large alliance berths.

Now?

“It pushes the door wide open,” Junker said.

The schools that gained most from the Michigan-Tennessee losses:

1--No. 14 Notre Dame (6-2). Ignore that poll ranking and those two losses.

The Irish, scrambling to find a bowl scenario that included them a week ago, suddenly have a dog in this hunt.

“Their brand is very strong,” Junker said. “Can you make a case that they can have one more loss than most people and be seated when musical chairs end? Yes. That’s who they are and what they are.”

Remaining games: Pittsburgh, Rutgers, at USC.

2--No. 6 North Carolina (8-1). This year’s warm-and-fuzzy story, the Tar Heels appeared Gator Bowl-bound as Atlantic Coast Conference runners-up, but now must be considered prime at-large alliance contenders.

Remaining games: at Virginia, at Duke.

3--No. 10 Brigham Young (10-1). This would be an answered prayer for the war-torn Western Athletic Conference, miffed at being left out of the alliance powwow. The Fiesta Bowl would be interested in BYU because of the large Mormon population in Arizona.

Remaining games: at Hawaii, at Utah, WAC title game.

4--No. 9 Kansas State (8-1). The good news is the Wildcats already got that Nebraska loss out of the way, but Kansas State must win at Colorado this week to stay in contention. Oh, expect the Wildcats to get bounced by Notre Dame if there’s an alliance choice.

Remaining schedule: at Colorado, Iowa State.

5--No. 8 Alabama (8-1). Still an at-large longshot because the Crimson Tide is facing a second loss, to Florida, in the Southeastern Conference title game.

Remaining games: at Mississippi, Auburn, SEC title game.

6--(tie) No. 11 Penn State (8-2), No. 6 Colorado (8-1), No. 13 Northwestern (8-2).

Comments: The Nittany Lions will warrant consideration with victories over Michigan and Michigan State; the Buffaloes’ chances are downgraded because they finish against Kansas State and at Nebraska; the Wildcats still have carry-over magic.

Outside shot: No. 16 Michigan (7-2). Yes, the Purdue loss was a killer, but what if the Wolverines close with victories over Penn State and Ohio State?

WHAT HATH NORTHWESTERN WROUGHT?

News item: One year after Northwestern goes from cellar-dweller to conference champion, four second-tier Big Ten coaches are either fired or forced to resign.

Coincidence?

This week, Lou Tepper got the ax at Illinois and Minnesota’s Jim Wacker resigned under pressure, joining soon-to-be ex-Big Ten coaches Bill Mallory of Indiana (fired) and Purdue’s Jim Colletto (resigned).

For years, Big Ten have-nots could always point to built-in recruiting advantages at Ohio State and Michigan to explain away sub-.500 seasons.

But after Northwestern’s turnaround, you can bet athletic directors in Bloomington, Champaign, West Lafayette and Minneapolis were walking around campus saying, “If Northwestern can do it, why can’t we?”

Gary Barnett, was all this your fault?

“I hope not, in any way,” the Northwestern coach said Tuesday. “I did genuinely feel all those guys--Bill, Jim, Jim and Lou--were genuinely happy for us and what we’ve done in our program. I don’t think it hurt them in the end. I think, if anything, it gave everybody some degree that there are no situations that are uncontrollable.”

Barnett did acknowledge that athletic directors have no clue how difficult it is to turn around a losing program.

“Unless an administrator has been a Division I football coach, he doesn’t know,” Barnett said. “And that’s OK, he’s not supposed to know. I don’t know what an administrator goes through.”

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

--Of the three alliance bowls, the Sugar is the easiest to handicap. If form holds, the Florida-Florida State winner on Nov. 30 will probably meet a once-beaten Nebraska on Jan. 2 at the Superdome.

--Here is a very plausible scenario in which No. 4 Arizona State wins the national championship: The Sun Devils beat Arizona on Nov. 23 (easier written than done), defeat No. 2 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, while Nebraska defeats No. 1 Florida in the Sugar.

The Sun Devils would hold the trump card, their 19-0 victory over Nebraska in September.

--Great news for Oklahoma fans? Because of the new divisional format in the Big 12, the Oklahoma-Nebraska game will cease next season after 70 consecutive annual meetings. The Sooners lead the series, 35-39-3, but the Cornhuskers have won the last six games by an average score of 33-9.

After a four-year break, the schools will meet again in 2002. There has been talk of keeping the consecutive streak alive with the schools playing each other in nonconference games.

--Iowa State tailback Troy Davis needs 178 yards this weekend against Nebraska to reach 2,000 for the season, which will make him the first back in NCAA history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in consecutive seasons.

--The hot candidate to get one of the vacant Big Ten jobs is Northwestern defensive coordinator Ron Vanderlinden.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Extended Play

A look at overtime games this season, with date, final score, and score at the end of regulation:

*--*

Date Final Regulation Aug. 31 Oklahoma St. 23, SW Missouri St. 20 17-17 Aug. 31 Oregon 30, Fresno St. 27 24-24 Sept. 7 Wyoming 41, Iowa St. 38 38-38 Sept. 14 Houston 42, Pittsburgh 35 35-35 Sept. 28 California 48, Oregon St. 42 35-35 Sept. 28 Cincinnati 30, Miami, Ohio 23 17-17 Oct. 5 Illinois 46, Indiana 43 33-33 Oct. 12 Ball St. 30, Ohio 27 27-27 Oct. 12 Oklahoma 30, Texas 27 24-24 Oct. 12 Stanford 27, Oregon 24 24-24 Oct. 19 Air Force 20, Notre Dame 17 17-17 Oct. 19 Arizona St. 48, USC 35 28-28 Nov. 2 California 56, Arizona 55 35-35 Nov. 2 Central Michigan 52, Kent 51 42-42 Nov. 9 Houston 56, Southern Mississippi 49 49-49 Nov. 9 W. Michigan 16, Bowling Green 13 13-13

*--*