The BCS baby

Fiesta Bowl has benefitted like no other from current system

For OSU and Miami fans, it's all fun and games -- until the Fiesta Bowl begins. AP

By John Donovan, CNNSI.com

TEMPE, Ariz. -- In the brief history of that sometimes wonderful, always wacky and often villified creation known as the Bowl Championship Series, there hasn't been a bigger winner than the Fiesta Bowl.

While other bowls in the BCS quartet whine about a loss of tradition, struggle to fill seats and put up with some major stinkers, the Fiesta has become the crown jewel of the system. Friday night, the Fiesta again takes the spotlight on college football's biggest stage as it hosts its second national championship game in the five years of the BCS.

Scrap the BCS? Add an extra game after the four BCS games are played? A true college football playoff?

You'll have to get past the Fiesta first.

"We don’t see anything not to like," says the bowl's president and chief executive officer, John Junker. "We feel very grateful to be a part of this."

Friday, Jan. 3 -- Kickoff, 8:20 p.m. ET "Our players are not overwhelmed by the magnitude of the game. They're not overwhelmed by playing for a national championship. Hopefully, that's an advantage." -- Miami head coach Larry Coker 5 -- National title games played in the Fiesta Bowl: Miami-Penn State, 1987; Notre Dame-West Virginia, 1989; Nebraska-Florida, 1996; Florida-State Tennessee, 1999; Miami-Ohio State, 2003. Nothing's official, and we're not going to count, but it sure seems like Ohio State fans outnumber Miami fans here in Tempe. In restaurants, in bars, on the streets and sidewalks around Sun Devil Stadium, Buckeyes are everywhere. There are pockets of Hurricanes fans -- saw some at the ritzy South Mountain resort the other night -- but the scarlet and gray is practically ubiquitous in the Valley. Part of it is the fact Miami is a much smaller school with a smaller alumni base. Part of it is Miami is simply farther away. Part of it is that Ohio State fans may be hungrier. The Buckeyes haven't played for a national title since 1979; Miami won one last year. Whatever, the Arizona territory has turned into Ohio State territory, a veritable Columbus West. Will Ohio State RB Maurice Clarett use the brouhaha that surrounded him this week to his advantage, or will the freshman crumble under the weight of a controversial and too-long week? Special teams Todd Sievers was one of the best kickers in the country in 2001 -- he slipped a bit in '02 -- but his value lies in his long kickoffs. Senior punter Freddie Capshaw averaged better than 41 yards a kick and can boom them much longer. Speedy Roscoe Parrish averages 13.4 yards every time he returns a punt, and Jason Geathers averages more than 21 yards on kickoff returns. But Miami has returned only one kick for a TD. Opponents average under 20 yards a KO return and under 11 on punts. Ohio State has two first-team All-America kickers. Punter Andy Groom was fourth in the nation in punting at better than 44 yards a kick. And kicker Mike Nugent was 24-for-26 on field goals. Chris Gamble averaged under nine yards a punt return, not so snazzy, but the team's kickoff returns were better. Maurice Hall averaged 23.3 yards a return, and Gamble 23.0. Ohio State opponents averaged 11.8 yards a punt return and 21.0 on kickoffs. The Buckeyes didn't return a single punt or kickoff for a TD this season. Coaches Larry Coker The guy is undefeated as a head coach. What do you want? So easy-going he's not afraid to cut up with his players, Coker also has the undying respect and admiration of the team. He's mostly left alone a team that was talented enough when he inherited it from Butch Davis and has kept the Hurricanes on track for their second straight national title. Jim Tressel Straight-laced and stone-faced, at least compared to Coker, Tressel comes into the title game with some experience in these things. He was in six Division 1-AA title games at Youngstown State, winning four of them. This guy is unflappable. He guided a team that returned just 12 starters to a school-record 13 wins this season and is a tireless game-planner. The Buckeyes will be ready because of Tressel.

The Fiesta joined the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl before the 1999 bowl season as the hosts of an annual game between the two top-ranked teams in the country. The four bowls would rotate the game so each one would get a chance to host the title game every four years.

The system, of course, has not been perfect. Other bowls have struggled to maintain their viability. Arguments and bitter criticism of the BCS standings, which determine who will play in the title game, are commonplace.

The traditional matchups of some of the major bowls -- the Big Ten-Pac-10 rivalry of the Rose Bowl, for instance -- have taken a beating as the three non-title games jockey to grab the best teams that would draw the biggest crowds.

But the Fiesta Bowl, played at Arizona State University's 73,000-seat Sun Devil Stadium in suburban Tempe, has thrived. Friday night, two undefeated teams, Ohio State and Miami, will play in front of the bowl's fifth straight sellout crowd and before a television audience of millions.

Part of the Fiesta's love affair with the BCS is timing. The Fiesta hosted the first BCS national title game in 1999, when Tennessee beat Florida State. So the Fiesta automatically becomes the first bowl to host two BCS title games.

Part of the Fiesta's good run is the luck of the draw. Last year's game between Oregon and Colorado had some national title implications, even though the BCS national championship was being waged between Miami and Nebraska in the Rose Bowl. The winner of the BCS title game is automatically voted national champs by the coaches' poll, but the writers who vote in the other poll could have crowned Oregon champ, if Miami would have lost to Nebraska in the Rose Bowl. As it turned out, the Hurricanes won the Rose Bowl and were voted No. 1 by both polls.

Since joining the BCS, the Fiesta has never had a team ranked lower than No. 10 (Notre Dame in 2001) and never had a team with more than two losses. The games haven't been the greatest -- Oregon won 38-16 last year, Oregon State embarrassed Notre Dame 41-9 the year before -- but the matchups have all held a degree of intrigue.

Much of the Fiesta's success during its association with the BCS, though, has to do with the bowl itself. It's in an attractive warm-weather city, run by a group that has been doing it for more than 30 years, backed by a solid corporate sponsor (Tostitos) and supported by thousands of volunteers who show unflinching hospitality to the visiting teams, their fans and everyone else in town for the game.

"Where we trained was second to none," said Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, whose team practiced at Pinnacle High School, a new facility built on 77 acres in Phoenix. "The committee has given us every opportunity to prepare and also have a great experience along the way."

Even though the Fiesta has flourished, critics of the BCS have called for a better system to determine college football's national champ. Junker, in fact, was among those who thought that a fifth game, played between the top-ranked winners of the four BCS bowls, might work.

He's changed his mind, though, after seeing the success of the Fiesta in the current system.

"We just think a fifth game," he said, "would diminish the importance of these [BCS] games."

The Rose Bowl was left without its traditional Big Ten-Pac-10 matchup this year when the Orange Bowl stole away No. 3 Iowa and No. 5 Southern California. That left the Rose Bowl with No. 8 Oklahoma, a Pasadena neophyte, playing Washington State in front of more than 10,000 empty seats.

The Sugar Bowl took its traditional Southeastern Conference champ -- this season, No. 4 Georgia -- and pitted the Bulldogs against No. 16 Florida State.

It's a problem all the BCS bowls have, struggling to get attractive matchups. Only the Fiesta has managed to come so close to pulling it off every year.

"Can we get a game that doesn’t sell? Sure," Junker said. "But we had that chance anyway."

 

Related information

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video