Weathers: 'Rent-a-wins' convenient, but dangerous
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They’ve evolved from simply guarantee games to rent-a-wins (err rent-a-losses, Nick Saban has two regrettable examples).
Those are the games perennially set aside early in the schedule for the big, bad BCS conference bully to pile drive some lower-echelon throw pillow into submission, leaving the home folks with a smile and the loser battered, bloodied and bloated … with a fat check to deposit into the athletic department’s budget.
“It’s just the nature of the business,” North Texas football coach Todd Dodge said during last week’s Sun Belt Conference Media Day activities.
North Texas’ second-year coach, whose team travels to Baton Rouge on Sept. 16 to face LSU, managed to find another description that can truly capture the carnage in such encounters.
“I’ve heard them called body-bag games,” Dodge said.
At least Dodge has the advantage of watching fellow Sun Belt brethren Troy get thrown to the Tigers a week earlier after LSU opens with Appalachian State on Aug. 30. Depending on the outcome of that game, though, the Mean Green could find themselves playing out Dodge’s self-fulfilling prophecy.
Troy coach Larry Blakeney, who both played and coached at Auburn, realizes the challenge even for a program regarded as one of the Sun Belt’s shining lights.
“There are a lot of tough places to play in the SEC,” said Blakeney, who also takes his team to Ohio State two weeks after leaving LSU. “I do not diminish the magnitude of it being in Baton Rouge. They have great fans.”
Seven years after the fledgling Sun Belt opened for business, the conference has come a long way since it lost such “money” games with a great regularity that they started finding themselves in greater demand for return engagements.
The Sun Belt turned a corner in 2007 with three high-profile wins that helped the league finish rated higher than the Mid-American Conference and within breathing distance of Conference USA.
Two of those wins took place on the campuses of Sun Belt schools, with Troy defeating Oklahoma State and league champion Florida Atlantic knocking off Minnesota. The third and most memorable triumph took place when the University of Louisiana at Monroe handed Alabama a 21-14 road defeat in the first season for Saban. He experienced similar indignity while at LSU, who lost at home to UAB.
Sun Belt teams will be out in force this season with 25 games scheduled (counting ’09 SBC entrant Western Kentucky) against BCS conference opponents, including two in Tiger Stadium.
The LSUs of the world will again be prohibitive favorites and ready to cut a large check once the demolition’s over. But after witnessing some of the upheaval on the college landscape a year ago, some of it caused by Sun Belt teams, those super powers should be on alert as to avoid any cases of buyer’s remorse.
Those are the games perennially set aside early in the schedule for the big, bad BCS conference bully to pile drive some lower-echelon throw pillow into submission, leaving the home folks with a smile and the loser battered, bloodied and bloated … with a fat check to deposit into the athletic department’s budget.
“It’s just the nature of the business,” North Texas football coach Todd Dodge said during last week’s Sun Belt Conference Media Day activities.
North Texas’ second-year coach, whose team travels to Baton Rouge on Sept. 16 to face LSU, managed to find another description that can truly capture the carnage in such encounters.
“I’ve heard them called body-bag games,” Dodge said.
At least Dodge has the advantage of watching fellow Sun Belt brethren Troy get thrown to the Tigers a week earlier after LSU opens with Appalachian State on Aug. 30. Depending on the outcome of that game, though, the Mean Green could find themselves playing out Dodge’s self-fulfilling prophecy.
Troy coach Larry Blakeney, who both played and coached at Auburn, realizes the challenge even for a program regarded as one of the Sun Belt’s shining lights.
“There are a lot of tough places to play in the SEC,” said Blakeney, who also takes his team to Ohio State two weeks after leaving LSU. “I do not diminish the magnitude of it being in Baton Rouge. They have great fans.”
Seven years after the fledgling Sun Belt opened for business, the conference has come a long way since it lost such “money” games with a great regularity that they started finding themselves in greater demand for return engagements.
The Sun Belt turned a corner in 2007 with three high-profile wins that helped the league finish rated higher than the Mid-American Conference and within breathing distance of Conference USA.
Two of those wins took place on the campuses of Sun Belt schools, with Troy defeating Oklahoma State and league champion Florida Atlantic knocking off Minnesota. The third and most memorable triumph took place when the University of Louisiana at Monroe handed Alabama a 21-14 road defeat in the first season for Saban. He experienced similar indignity while at LSU, who lost at home to UAB.
Sun Belt teams will be out in force this season with 25 games scheduled (counting ’09 SBC entrant Western Kentucky) against BCS conference opponents, including two in Tiger Stadium.
The LSUs of the world will again be prohibitive favorites and ready to cut a large check once the demolition’s over. But after witnessing some of the upheaval on the college landscape a year ago, some of it caused by Sun Belt teams, those super powers should be on alert as to avoid any cases of buyer’s remorse.
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