Huddling or Muddling?

By Tom Callahan

Illegal procedures in a turned-around college football season

There is a school of thought, not a hard school to get into, that says football is roughly as comprehensible as nuclear physics. But it hardly seems that simple this year, particularly on the collegiate level, where pretty much everything appears to have been turned inside out.

While upsets tend to astound every season, few upstarts in the past have shown the flair of modest Syracuse, which was shut out by both Rutgers and Florida but shut down mammoth Nebraska in between. Also familiar is the critical call missed by the harried field judge, yet how often are apologies telephoned to the slighted coach? Two days after being tied by Texas, Oklahoma's Barry Switzer heard last week from the supervisor of officials that, as a matter of fact, there had been an interception in the end zone on the play prior to the Longhorns' last-second field goal. Sorry about that.

Similarly, while the wire-service polls have shown peculiarities before, Boston College's persistent presence during three idle weeks was extraordinary. By the chilly calculations of the New York Times computer, the Eagles soared from 19th to fifth on the wing of one victory over Temple, as Quarterback and leading Heisman Trophy Candidate Doug Flutie grew in stature but stayed 5 ft. 9 in.

Places in the polling hierarchy traditionally occupied by the overpowering--Alabama, Notre Dame, Pitt or U.S.C.--have been taken over by the middling--South Carolina, Kentucky or Washington. In its first five games, Alabama was able to beat only quaint Southwestern Louisiana, but then upset Penn State before losing to Tennessee. As bad starts go, this one went back to 1957, the year before the coming of Bear Bryant. About a month before Coach Bryant died in 1983, former Receiver Ray Perkins was selected to follow him. "From disbelief to sadness to disappointment to madness," as Perkins has described his two seasons' journey, effectively speaking for Gerry Faust as well, though Notre Dame's fourth-year coach probably wishes he had only one ghost to negotiate.

"If we could bottle Gerry's resiliency," sighs Associate Athletic Director Roger Valdiserri, "we'd have the Russians worried." Four setbacks in seven games, including a third consecutive loss to Air Force, would seem to have delivered Faust, once the best high school coach in Cincinnati, to some sort of brink. To those who know South Bend, the incredible fact is that he has lost three straight and is but 10 and 10 at home. Faust is a devout Catholic, and Irish followers are not devoid of faith. When Steve Oracko made a big kick in the '40s and an assistant coach, spotting from inside the Scoreboard, shouted joyously, "God bless you, Oracko!," weren't the fans below certain that they had heard the voice of Knute Rockne? Lately they are remembering that both Rockne and Ara Parseghian were Protestants.

On the subject of shaking the thunder down from the sky, Georgia Tech Coach Bill Curry has contributed an uncommonly straightforward speech to this general sense of the unusual. "What we're doing here is a lot more important than winning games," he told a gathering of boosters. "Let me tell you about the opposition: they cheat, they're vicious, they're dishonest and they corrupt young minds ... with drugs or whatever it takes to win." The furor he caused surprised him slightly, but pleased him greatly. "I think it helps every time we say it, and I hope people do get alarmed. We're dealing with young people's lives here. When that boy leaves home for the first time, the coach is his mother, father, minister, truant officer, counselor, tutor, everything. If cutting corners is inherent in the rules, that's the rule he'll live by."

The executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Walter Byers, has come to his own dismal conclusions after all these optimistic years. "I didn't believe it at the time," he said of Notre Dame Basketball Coach Digger Phelps' assertion over a year ago that the going rate for basketball and football players was $10,000 and $20,000. "I believe it now." Realizing that "probation is considered the price of doing business by some schools," Byers has allowed himself to muse aloud that open college football in the quasi-professional style of Olympic athletes might be worth considering. Phelps' suggestion is that the Internal Revenue Service follow the money.

Huge sums are still involved, although an attempt to plump the television take has backfired. An antitrust lawsuit aimed at loosening the N.C.A.A.'S grip has only increased the number of telecasts, on some TV system or other, from 89 last year to about 200. Both revenue and ratings are down. "More appearances, less money," Nebraska Athletic Director Bob Devaney sums it up. The endless mix of network, cable and syndicated productions is so haphazardly arranged and oddly timed that the impression is a blur of games, none seeming very special or important. Like so much of college football, it is hard to understand. --By Tom Callahan