Clemson/USC not bowl eligible

Everything else
1

Both Clemson and USC’s athletic departments have decided not to accept any bowl bids as punishment for the teams’ fight on Saturday.

What do you guys think about this? Here at Clemson, some people are pretty upset about it, saying the whole team shouldn’t be penalized for the fight (if you missed news of the fight, the whole game was played very rough with the refs not making a single call for any flagrant fouls or late hits, horrible officiating, and it culminated near the end of the fourth quarter with a fight that cleared both benches. No one was hurt, delayed things about 10 minutes, the in-game result was offsetting penalties).

At first I want to say that it is fair, things aren’t always fair for the whole timea, that’s life. Your whole team could play the best game they know how, but if the kicker’s not in the game with them and they lose by a field goal, the whole team suffers. Too bad.

On the other hand though, I’m not sure what I expect the team to have done. I haven’t studied replays extensively, but watching it happen at the game, it seemed like both benches emptied at pretty much the same time. If they hadn’t though, if one team had rushed the field and started a fight with the eleven guys on my team who were supposed to be on the field, I feel like it would be in some ways damaging to team morale if we didn’t rush out there to support them. So that makes me wonder what exactly the players were supposed to do, whether it was more important to show restraint or to support each other as a team, even in a mistake.

Overall, I still think the punishment is probably fair though.

2

If both teams weren’t 6-5, I would think it would be a bigger deal. These 5th tier bowls are just as likely to cost the team/school money rather than make money (like a Jan 1st or BCS bowl would).

3

Do you have evidence for that, dannimal? I thought the proliferation of bowls was the result of the money they brought in for everyone (including the schools). This definitely hurts both programs as far as exposure and money goes. They also lose the bonus practice time that you get when you accept a bowl bid.

4

Not outside of remembered discussions/readings, so I can’t point at a URL backing it up.

Wait, Google has come to my rescue:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/sfc/sfcfs69.htm

Granted, that’s from 2000, but I can’t imagine that in the post-bubble economic reality is much rosier.

It’s mostly travel that the fact that each school has to buy X tickets (for sale to students/faculty/staff/alumni), and if they don’t sell them, they eat the cost.

Now, often a bowl payout is actually made to the conference, and split among all the teams (usually for bowls which are locked into specific conferences), so if a particular conference sends teams to big bowls, then the teams can come out ahead overall but lose money on the trip).

5

Good for them. At least now the athletes have time to study for their upcoming finals.