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Good article on the BE/ACC tug of war over the CTB
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Jeff Jacobs Column

Can They Handle This Motor?
December 1, 2004

STORRS - UConn's historic first step into the maze of college bowls is more about being boffo box office than it is about Boston College's spectacular choke job against Syracuse.

Whether UConn fans party well and spend even better will mean more to UConn's bowl future than how much partying went on at the Big East offices after BC, which spent every last shekel of good will, brought down its Big East curtain with a spectacular splat.

You say only a troublemaker would tie UConn with BC today?

Only a rabble-rouser would pit the Big East vs. the ACC?

Maybe, but you'd have to be a more naive Pollyanna than even BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo wants you to be to ignore the delicious stuff that ended up putting BC in the Continental Tire Bowl and UConn in the Motor City Bowl on Tuesday.

Before the 43-17 loss to Syracuse, BC, much to the chagrin of every moral man north of the Mason-Dixon Line, was headed to the multimillions of a BCS bowl. Yet even after the Eagles were shellacked Saturday, they still had an 8-3 record and had beaten UConn by 20 points. So as soon as the Gator Bowl took West Virginia, it should have taken all of three seconds for the Tire Bowl folks to take BC. There should have been a press conference Monday.

Three seconds, that's all Motor City Bowl executive director Ken Hoffman said it took to unanimously accept UConn once BC finally went to the Tire Bowl. The Tire folks, however, hesitated because they were locked into UConn, 7-4, before the BC loss. They hesitated because they were excited by the possibilities that the new kid with the big brand name could bring. They hesitated because BC hasn't, in the parlance, traveled well to bowl games. They hesitated because Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese leaned on them to take UConn instead of a school that had alienated so many with its bald-faced greed.

The decision that should have taken three seconds took two days. UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway finally got the news at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday. The Eagles did go to Charlotte in the end, because Raycom Sports operates the Tire Bowl and has broadcast ACC football and basketball games for two decades. The Eagles did go because ACC commissioner John Swofford, one of the great corporate raiders in sports history, leaned on the Tire Bowl to take an incoming ACC school to play an existing ACC team (North Carolina). It was an inside job. Bravo, BC! Have your last little chuckle at UConn.

Although the payoff for both bowls is $750,000, the Tire Bowl is considered one notch above the Motor City. And don't you think the Eagles deserve the lovely parting gift after choking so magnificently against Syracuse? Isn't this the least BC deserves from Raycom and its ACC cronies on Tobacco Road for doing its best to destroy the Big East? Most important, don't you think the Eagles deserve the best bowl possible in 2004 because - ouch - they will see fewer bowls in the next 10 years than UConn? With Miami, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Virginia, et al., in football and all those lovely midnight basketball flights through the snow home, those numbers the BC brass have slapped together better not be voodoo economics or BC will rue the day it made its unholy alliance with Swofford.

Yet as delicious as BC's final lap of - as they say down in Carolina - trading paint with the Big East was, it isn't about BC coach Tom O'Brien whining, "I'm not going to play anybody in the Big East [from now on], for what we went through. Absolutely not. I'm just glad it's over ... Just everything we've had to put up with - said and unsaid - and the treatment. It didn't have to end this way with the Big East, but, for whatever reason, there was a lot of animosity toward Boston College."

For whatever reason? FOR WHATEVER REASON?

Sorry, we digress.

Despite kicking the tire before buying into the motor, this is really about UConn selling tickets, chartering flights, selling packages. At its best, the bowl system is a movable feast, one hosted by a chamber of commerce brigade and one attended by a horde of fun. Dress in the same color and paint the town red. Hoot. Holler. Chant. Go home with a hangover. For a price, it's priceless. The Motor City Bowl required UConn to buy 10,000 seats at Ford Field and how many of those, or even more, UConn sells at $45 each will tell this bowl and all the others if UConn is a player. Ohio State football is a player. Kentucky basketball is a player. UConn basketball is a player. Nobody knows for sure if UConn football is.

So Dan Orlovsky's arm is only part of this. Randy Edsall's game plan is only part of this. How badly Husky Nation wants to be part of the bowl scene is the rest of it. That's why Hathaway kept saying "uconnbowl.com" every second breath Tuesday. That's the website with the ticket and travel info.

All the UConn players were there at the Dodd Center as Hathaway formally accepted the offer from the Motor City Bowl. They all clapped and hollered. It was a historic day for UConn, even if the team knew it would be in a bowl since last week. The players gave up Thanksgiving to play Rutgers on national television. The players will give up their Christmas to play in a bowl game. Sacrifices have been made for this history.

And now the fans, who would have had a more generous time frame with the Dec. 30 game in Charlotte, will decide on Detroit Dec. 27. There will be packages on Dec. 26 for those who want to leave late. The Pistons have Rip Hamilton. The Shock have Swin Cash. UConn will be calling on all its famous alumni to help sell the bowl game in the coming days. UConn will play the winner of the Toledo-Miami (Ohio) game Thursday night. Both MAC schools have more votes in the AP poll than North Carolina, but with the Tire Bowl in Charlotte the Tar Heels probably would have been a bigger favorite over UConn.

"This game is a huge step in the progress of our program," Edsall said via conference call from Pittsburgh, where he was recruiting.

That it is. But the hugest step will be moving tickets for this year and the impact it will have on next year and the year after that. Who knows? Maybe BC and UConn will meet some day in the Tire Bowl. If BC can get there.
12-01-2004 08:19 AM
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what a great article!!!!
12-01-2004 11:23 AM
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