Ethan Nichol
Blowouts happen, now move on. The Savannah State Tigers were defeated in week one of the current college football season 84-0 by the then 19th-ranked Cowboys of Oklahoma State and, to make matters worse, they took a 55-point beating from the Florida State Seminoles this week. That’s almost a basketball score. But despite those scores, the Tigers shouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
Savannah State is a member of the Football Championship Series, or FCS, subdivision. Formerly known as Division I-AA, the FCS differs from the Football Bowl Series, FBS, because the FCS employs a playoff for their postseason rather than the bowl system played by Division I programs. It has become a recent trend of top-notch FBS schools, like Oklahoma State, to pad their schedules with FCS schools like Savannah State.
Now, due to the lopsided and embarrassing contests that college football has come to broadcast to begin recent seasons, the question of whether the integrity of the game has been compromised is being raised. The argument is that top tier programs scheduling smaller, less equipped schools leads to boring, predictable outcomes. However, these blowouts are absolutely necessary to college football today.
Smaller FCS schools receive a significant sum to make the trek to uninviting, intimidating stadiums to take their whooping and move on. In fact, ESPN.com reports that the Tigers will collect a total nearing $860,000, which should help the “financially strapped athletic program.”
FBS teams, on the other hand, make a financial tradeoff for valuable experience before intense conference schedules begin. FBS schools don’t have the luxury of a preseason, so why not get the players some easy game experience before they have to play the likes of Florida or Ohio State? When it comes to college football, the emphasis on the regular season is astronomical, so it makes sense for powerhouse programs to gradually ease their way into the level of competition that they’ll be facing later on in the season.
FCS teams stand to make more than economic gains out of the situation too. They are playing against physically gifted, professionally groomed athletes that the FCS just doesn’t have to offer. That experience is invaluable for those players and will only make them better when it comes playoff time.
But what if one of the FCS teams could pull off the unthinkable? What if David could beat Goliath? The “what if” factor is what college football is entirely predicated on.
Sure, FCS teams are in it for the dough, but they most definitely have that “what if” factor in the back of their minds when it comes time to schedule. It is possible. Remember when Appalachian State defeated Michigan in 2007?
Blowouts happen, plain and simple. But the concept of blowouts is what makes college football great because from week to week there is always that possibility that maybe, just maybe, someone like Savannah State is going to come away with more than just a few bucks. Now that’s integrity.