College Football Consolidation

The BCS was always BS...

Talk of the consolidation of college football's major conferences has been all the rage this week. Today it looks as if it is becoming official, with University of Colorado's announcement that it is joining the PAC-10 and the University of Nebraska announcement that it is bolting the Big 12 for the Big 10. This will very quickly make the Big 12 no mas, as most of the remaining teams will seize the opportunity to make the PAC-10 a sixteen team league.

As wily observers know this is all about the haves and have-nots amongst the college football power players. The expansion of PAC-10 to a sixteen team league will be followed in short order by the Big-10 and SEC expanding to sixteen team leagues. The ACC will also be reluctantly forced to do so to ally with the college football superpowers. This will allow these four conferences to sideline the NCAA, as well as the BCS and have their own college football playoff. It is all about the dead presidents and there is no reason for the college football programs with the juice to split the Division I-A college football revenue pie one-hundred and eleven ways when they can reduce that split to sixty-four.

There is an interesting analysis about how this came about by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports here. However that is looking backward, the Clarion Content is more fascinated by how things will turn out going forward. Our prediction is it will not be long before the Big East is a basketball only league again. Villanova, St. John's and Georgetown will not mind. The question is what happens to the storied and not so storied programs from the current BCS conferences that end up on the outside looking in at the money. Our speculation on the schools that might end up on that list would include Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and UConn. These schools along with the already jilted: Utah, Utah State, Boise State and Fresno States of the world may be made enough to actually get congressional action this time.

Have the college football commissioners warned the university presidents that their radical schemes for the future might bring about anti-trust lawsuits and Department of Justice maneuvering. President Obama signaled way back in the election campaign that he was pro-college football playoff, but by any means necessary?

The Clarion Content is pro-college football playoff too, but it is easy to feel genuine concern that money has distorted the system so badly that these schools are losing track of their education mission to their student bodies and their duty to the college athlete. And maybe this was already so under the corrupt and co-opted NCAA, but will this consolidation make it any better? Quien sabe?

Durkheimian Ritual

A typical celebratory mob forming

The California Angels have ripped a page straight out of the French social anthropologist Émile Durkheim's proverbial manual on the power of collective ritual. Last week the Angels were celebrating a walk-off home run in what has become the style. They were pounding the home run hitting teammate on the noggin, shoulders, and upper body, in a veritable mosh pit around home plate. Star first baseman Kendry Morales slipped and broke his leg during the collective celebration ritual of an exciting win.

A funny thing happened after that, despite Morales leading the team in home runs, runs batted in and average before getting hurt, the Angels increased their offensive production. They have won seven of eight while scoring an average of 7.25 runs per game. This is well up from their heretofore paltry, for the American League, 4.35 runs per game. They have slugged thirteen homers in those eight contests and are hitting .303 as a team since Morales got hurt.

It says here that, this is a classic case of the power of ritual to collectively raise the abilities of all members who participate. [Belief helps.] The California Angels as a team joined in a celebratory dance in which Morales was severely, if accidentally, injured. The team likely felt a collective guilt for this injury. In the video replays it is quite difficult to assess blame for the injury individually. These players participated in the ritual that created a problem for their teammate and theoretically their team. They could not undo what was done to their teammate, but they could channel their collective psyche and its powerful response (exponentially powerful as Durkheim would tell it by the relative unanimity of emotional experience).

They did so on the field, tearing the cover off the ball, like a team possessed by a spirit. Who would have thunk a French social anthropologist could have told you so?

Perfection

A hero to tell the kiddies about, Armando Galarraga...

At the Clarion Content we ask the Sports Editor not to get too philosophical, but sometimes it is inevitable. Sports are a microcosm of society and they are part of the arena in which we address, debate and come to understand important moral dilemmas for stakes lower than life and death.

Last night was such an example, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from pitching a perfect game. The centerfielder Austin Jackson had just made a dandy defensive play, retiring the leadoff hitter in the ninth with a superb running catch almost at the wall, to preserve the perfect game. One out later a routine groundball to the firstbaseman, who fired to Galarraga covering. Ball game! Perfection! First time ever three perfect games had been thrown in one season, or so we might have thought.

Unfortunately, the first base umpire, Jim Joyce blew the call. He ruled the runner safe, when instant replay clearly showed that Galarraga nipped him at the bag. Perhaps, Joyce was fooled by a slight bobble on the catch muffling the usual thwack into the glove. No matter, the reality is simply that he made a mistake.

And this is where the philosophy comes in, the Clarion Content holds that, as we understand the nature of things, there can be a maximum of one perfection in the Universe. Joyce did nothing wrong. (Morally, accidents are not wrongs.) He showed that he was human like we all are. Publicly, in a society with omnipresent 24/7 media coverage. Galarraga handled the situation so graciously after the game, accepting Joyce's apology with class and dignity. He could not have handled the situation better. He had achieved baseball immortality either way: a perfect game or the most widely footnoted non-perfect game this side of Harvey Haddix's twelve miraculous innings. He said someday he would show his son a tape of the game and be just as proud.

This was what the experts like to call "teachable moment." Nobody is perfect, we all err, and to admit your wrongs (like umpire Joyce did immediately after seeing the replay) and forgive (like Tigers' pitcher Andres a Galarraga) is what makes us the best we can be. The best we can be is human beings as fallible. It is a terminal condition we all share. None of us perfect. None of us as immortal. At our highest heights, and this was certainly the biggest moment of Galarraga's career, the best we can be is humble and gracious.