Arizona State head football coach Todd Graham is making headlines after claiming the scheduling of cupcake teams is “un-American.”
We need to consider what the fans want,” Graham said, via AZfamily.com. “Fans don’t want to see you schedule four easy wins, then get two conference wins to get into a bowl game. That’s un-American.
Maybe Graham is alluding to the fact that a lack of competition goes against American standards. The easy way out.
He isn’t necessarily wrong. It takes only a 6-6 record to earn a postseason bowl game in today’s college football world. That’s like adults continuing to give children participation ribbons, even as the children enter into adulthood.
Graham continued:
In the future, I would love to see us expand to an eight-team playoff and keep the major bowls intact,” Graham said. “Every conference champion gets an automatic bid. You’d have five automatic bids and three at-large. Here’s how that would affect fans. We schedule A&M, Michigan State, LSU. You’d see us playing Oklahoma, Texas. You’d see those games because non-conference doesn’t have a bearing on who gets into the playoff.
This may be a solid plan, but all programs would have to get on board, Arizona State included.
The 2015 season will see Graham’s Sun Devils go up against the likes of Cal Poly and New Mexico. Yes, a Southern California-based technical school. How’s that for not scheduling cupcakes?
Photo: USA Today Sports