MSU's date will add up to some hard-earned cash

You wanted things back to normal?

Well, in college football, they're definitely back to normal. For whatever that's worth.

With their various cotillions canceled over the weekend, NCAA universities have been frantic in arranging dubious couplings for do- overs later in the season. When Minnesota and Baylor had to bail on one another, they wound up with Murray State and Southern Illinois instead. Oklahoma State cozied up to Northwestern State of Louisiana. Bowling Green wound up in bed with Northwestern.

"All the jockeying that usually takes place in February and March," noted Montana State coach Mike Kramer, "just got compressed into four days."

Early on in those four days, Kramer drew a line in the sand - and through the third week of October on his calendar - before "common sense reached into my brain" on Tuesday.

OK. Common dollars and sense.

So now Washington State has its precious 11th game again, an Oct. 18 blind date with MSU - the best possible option in a bad situation for the Cougars, and maybe something less than that for the Bobcats.

But who are we kidding? Who in college football cares about the Bobcats anyway?

Outside of the Big Sky Conference and the world of Division I-AA, the Bobcats are very much - in boxing parlance - an "opponent," a speed bag with a Social Security number. In the cruelest terms, they just don't count - but they do count pennies.

They have an $800,000 athletic department deficit and had just seen a $200,000 payday with Oregon State canceled by the weekend moratorium - and the Beavers' instant waltz into the arms of Northern Arizona, which had a Nov. 17 open date MSU didn't.

"It still comes back to the financial obligation we have to play a I-A team," Kramer acknowledged.

Amazing how easily principle scrubs off in a cold shower. Now get out there and win one for a balanced budget!

Kramer had balked at the mid-October alternative of playing at WSU because of where it fit into the Bobcats' conference schedule and what that might mean to a program trying to make chicken salad out of that 0-11 season it had to eat last fall.

Already the Bobcats have topped that by beating Weber State 10 days ago. Kramer can allow himself to imagine three weeks of momentum being erased by the Cougars, whose average margin of victory in five previous meetings with MSU is 31 points.

"But if it's going to be painful," Kramer finally concluded, "let's get it over with. Like a trip to the dentist."

In doing so, MSU may have sold short.

Kramer said Tuesday that he had overtures "from two well-heeled programs who want access to us even now" for games on Nov. 24.

How well-heeled? Kramer said their dollar offers had reached "half a million.

"You're looking at some outlandish numbers. Programs that are looking for that sixth win that will make you bowl eligible and the coaching staff is up against it, they're getting out their checkbooks."

But Kramer remembers, as an assistant at Eastern Washington, accompanying the Eagles to Houston for an 84-21 shellacking in November one year. Money talks, but sometimes it doesn't make sense.

"November money games are worthless," he said. "The paycheck's good, but there's absolutely no other point."

So he looked at some of the points put forth by WSU coach Mike Price and athletic director Jim Sterk. Minimal travel. A chance of playing on regional TV. A Thursday game allowing additional preparation time in advance of the next game.

"And then they went back to the bank and came back with a bigger slice of the pie," Kramer said. "It's not SEC or Big 12 money, but every little bit helps. It eventually came down to me. Mike wanted to play. Jim made some good arguments. For us, it makes common sense.

"But not competitive sense."

Hey, that's true even in the best of times. MSU's 2002 opener against Wazzu won't be any easier to sell because of this one.

And this was hardly the best of times. The horror that triggered the week's events - or, rather, the absence of them - was unfathomable. Alas, the educratic waffling that ensued was all too fathomable.

"Some of the things that have happened are all too typical," Kramer said. "You have to feel for a Washington State which has worked like heck to get a Colorado into Pullman for the first time and now they'll never get there - but just what does that matter?

"The one thing that bothered me most was the insidiousness of the potential of actually playing last week. On Tuesday night, I begged our administration and conference leadership to not play, to push for the playoffs to be moved back - and nobody in college football answered that call until the NFL made its decision.

"I was privy to a I-AA national conference call that just shattered me, the kind of trivial, self-serving things that were discussed. I thought, `My God, is anybody paying attention?' Thank God for Paul Tagliabue."

Does college football need its own Tagliabue?

"Yeah, but you'll never see one," Kramer said. "The divisiveness in college football will never accommodate that, the climate, the stuff that's still going on.

"Great story. I was checking into a couple of the prominent teams who had approached us, to see if they were someone we really wanted to play. I talked to a lot of people, friends in the business. One of the schools is a program on the rise who is recruiting tailbacks out of Texas - and entering the bidding at $50,000."

Hey, it's probably just a story, a tale being told out of school.

Or it's business back to normal.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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