WAC coaches frustrated by BCS' bowl monopoly
By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
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For Rice, whose last bowl appearance came in 1961, being good is never good enough.
"The only way for us to go to a bowl," Rice coach Ken Hatfield said, "is to win the league championship."
Those plights illustrate the growing frustration of WAC coaches over the bowl system.
Six conferences are assured of berths in the four lucrative Bowl Championship Series games. There are two at-large berths, but since the formation of the BCS, none has gone to any of the so-called "mid-major" conferences. Non-BCS teams must finish in the top six in the BCS standings, a ranking that combines polls and computer ratings, to qualify for an at-large berth.
"Until they shuffle out the BCS formula or somebody happens to actually run the table and go undefeated and go in the top six, it's not going to happen," Boise State coach Dan Hawkins said of the chances of a WAC team playing in a BCS bowl.
With almost all of the BCS bowls having tie-ins with leagues, Boise State appears doomed to always competing for the right to play in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise.
"It would be nice to go to a bowl in another state," said BSU safety Wes Nurse, who lives across the street from Bronco Stadium.
The WAC has guaranteed tie-ins with three bowls in WAC cities — the Humanitarian Bowl, Hawai'i Bowl and Silicon Valley Bowl on San Jose State's campus. With no WAC tie-in for a bowl in the Southwest, Rice, in Houston, can only qualify for a postseason berth by winning the league's regular-season title. Two years ago, Rice went 8-4 and did not receive a bowl berth.
"One conference started to get everybody affiliated with a game and now everybody thinks we're moving along, (thinking) 'We're 6-5 and we get to go to a bowl,' " Hatfield said. "I think it's lost its luster on the meaning of going to a bowl. I think they watered it down from what it used to be, of really having to earn your way to a bowl."
While having a hometown bowl gives Boise State an edge, it also means it has no chance of playing in an out-of-state bowl.
"It's slotted," Hawkins said. "It's done for you. There's not a lot of negotiating going on."
No place like WAC: The grass may be green everywhere else, but Dan Hawkins said that, for now, he prefers Boise State's blue artificial turf.
Hawkins said the "quality of life" he enjoys in Boise makes it difficult to pursue other coaching jobs.
"I probably make more money than 90 percent of the people in America," said Hawkins, whose base salary is about $150,000 annually. "Why am I worried about making 95 percent?"
Several years ago, he recalled wishing: "If I make $50,000 coaching football, I'd be jacked. I'd be the happiest guy. I don't have a lot of suits in my closet. I don't drive fancy cars. Will I be here forever? I don't know. But I'm not a guy who's chasing a bigger paycheck."
Two years ago, Fresno State's Pat Hill turned down an offer to coach at Kansas for $800,000 annually. Hill recently signed a contract extension that pays him more than $500,000 a year. He is rumored to be in the running for the soon-to-be-vacated head coaching job at Washington.
But Hill said: "I really like my situation (in Fresno). My family likes it there. I want to be the guy at Fresno State when we get to the big time. If it ever gets to the point where I see it as a dead-end street, then it's not a good job. But as far as I'm concerned, it's a job I'm committed to. More than anything else, I'm committed to my players."
Steve Kragthorpe, Tulsa's first-year coach, left as the Buffalo Bills' quarterbacks coach.
Kragthorpe, whose father was head coach at Idaho State and Oregon State, said he missed college football.
Growing up, "I've been thrown in lockers, taped to (tackling) dummies, thrown in whirlpools. These are my fondest memories," he mused.
NOTES: Rapper Snoop Dogg stayed at the Grove Hotel, where the WAC Football Media Preview was staged. ... WAC commissioner Karl Benson said ESPN offered an extension to the three-year contract that expires in March. Benson said he put negotiations on hold until proposed conference realignments across the country are settled.
