Better send this off to Colorado quick, Jim Sterk.
There’s a pivotal scene in season four of The Wire where Bodie — a weathered drug gang lieutenant who had seen his aspirations and ambitions crushed by the ruthlessness and greed of the new kingpin — sits in a park with Detective McNulty to eat lake trout and bare his soul. In the process, he utters an unforgettable, almost universal, line:
The game is rigged, man. We like them little bitches on the chess board.
Well, if anything is clear after Boise State pulled the plug on the grand Big East experiment today and paved the way for SDSU’s walk of shame back to the Mountain West, it’s that we are still — and will likely always be — them little bitches on the chess board. Also, shortly after that scene, Bodie gets shot in the head*. I’d say that’s roughly what we have to look forward to now, in terms of college football relevance.
Oy. There was so much optimism at this time last year, wasn’t there? For example, check out this pie-in-the-sky bullshit written by some hack SDSU blogger when the Big East gambit first became official.
Man, what a rube.
Now everything has blown up in our faces and we have to stand on Craig Thompson’s doorstep with hat in hand. Yet while it’s natural to want to lash out, I still don’t blame Jim Sterk for being proactive and taking the chance he took. The endgame he was striving for was financial stability, increased exposure and prestige, and — if all went well — better positioning for the next round of major conference expansion (to keep up the Bodie metaphor, ditching the MWC was the equivalent of killing Wallace).
And we would have gotten away with it, too, were it not for that pesky rigged game.
In the end, we should have known it was too good to be true. That more expansion was on the way. That the television dollars would fall short. That the programs that stuck their necks out would be exposing themselves to the executioner’s axe.
So what now?
Craig Thompson and the rest of the MWC schools will take their well-deserved victory lap. We’ll twist in the wind for a bit, but ultimately I’d be shocked if we don’t find our old bunk awaiting (though I also wouldn’t be shocked if UNLV took a dump in it). And, in the meantime, we’ll get reacquainted with an indisputable fact: The cartel of schools that controls big-time college football has no incentive to ever loosen its stranglehold on the industry or let new members into their club.
We can aspire all we want, but this will always be the result. We will always be on the outside looking in, faces pressed against the glass.
The game is rigged, man.
But hey, at least there will be fewer basketball games is high school gyms! So, you know, there’s that.
* Spoiler alert!
Even with all of your bullshit, you are right a little more often than you are wrong, and take the risk as a writer to swing for the fences with the hope of a homerun and the knowledge that such swings will also result in a strikeout. As I have told you before, your columns deserve a larger audience and in my opinion would be welcome in the U-T, had it not turned into such a piss poor waste of paper and ink overall. In the end, you entertain, and for that I thank you. Happy New Year!
Thanks, Jim! Happy New Year!
Mongo only pawn in game of life
Pretty sure SMU and Houston got wasted at this party and passed out in the bathtub like us.Let’s see if see if they want to split a cab ride back to Mountain West.
great use of a great quote from one of the great shows that have ever blessed the homes of those able to afford cable. The game is rigged, and always will be. Dreamers will be held to the fullest extent of the law.
Just watch. It isn’t enough that BYU claims we loath them, even after they have to cheat to win. Why would they consult a media guru to see what our tv deal could be in Pig East? They have to tolerate Utah and others, but they don’t want to have to live with tolerating us. We are their biggest threat in recruiting, if a LDS kid can’t qualify for other SoCal schools. Our campus is new, exciting, and we’re moving up. And kids can have premarital sex here and not get tossed off the team.
If we’re to have trouble getting back into MWC, it’ll be due to BYU suddenly wanting back in. Even if another team beats us back to our chair, BYU will be involved. They’d prefer us back in the WAC, nice and quiet. Beatable like we usually are. Hope we do get back in, and BYU keeps their elite status.
As for AztecsKillingHim. I trust your coverage more than anybody else’s. Thanks for making me laugh, for all the info you bring. You bring retrospect we all need to read. The BYU bloggers are too busy sucking their own ass juice to worry about truth.
Damn. You people are making me blush.
Also, I plan to steal the phrase “sucking their own ass juice.”
I’ll guarantee you BYU won’t go back to the MWC. BYU left due to the TV deal and Utah leaving. When Utah left it meant that the conference never would get BCS status.
And SDSU is not the only one to get screwed by the BCS. The very first year of the BCS was my freshman year at BYU, we finished the year #6 (maybe it was #5), and we were passed over by other teams for the fiesta bowl. We ended up beating Kanasas State in a bowl game and holding our ranking for the final polls. When they created the BCS system the whole purpose was to give the top eight teams spots in the big time games, and then they violated it the very first year with BYU and acted like it was no big deal. Shortly after this they switched from the top eight to conference champions, plus a few open spots so they could screw BYU again if they had a good year.
I have no idea why you think BYU is out to get SDSU, they’re making decision based on what is best for BYU. This has absolutely nothing to do with SDSU. And both schools are getting screwed by the BCS. Nobody has the balls to stand up and change the situation.
And to add to what I just wrote, you are better off in the MWC. The big east is going to lose their BCS status. Their top teams aren’t even finishing in the top 25 anymore, and many are leaving or have already left. MWC basketball is good and if you guys put your program in the big west it would just whither away.
And 1996 is the year I was referencing above, we finished #5.
It will be very difficult to make the new BCS playoffs without a conference affiliation. Maybe not right now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if BYU wants back in down the road.
Yeah, BYU is making decisions on what’s best for them. Read some of AztecsKillingHim other posts about BYU’s running interference against what SDSU wants to do. The Cougars have cultivated an equally if not more intense bitter rivalry with Utah. Many of the same reasons here apply there. Deal with your rivals off the field and they’ll never challenge you on the field. I agree right now it’s best for BYU to remain inde and sing about the elite status. They got a good tv deal. There’s plenty of cable and LDS folks spread around to prove it’s true. So be it. But if BYU wanted back in? Get out of their way… If other schools could equal the appeal offered to football-infected returning LDS missionary athletes, things would get interesting.
Contrast way back when BYU and SDSU acted together in mutual interest. They held hands while jumping off the WAC when it became diluted (to protect their rivalry). The saturation they fled in WAC now exists again in MWC. More changes to come?
The BCS system is built around and meant to screw with incest intent (never allow whining schools ever to be considered equal) all teams that wanted in to big bowls and bigger money. When these fat schools aren’t playing football it’s NASCAR and mosquitos, tornadoes, maybe some fishing. Not much else happening. Regardless, we agree this system is never fair. And your school was also screwed. And with that, why can’t some folks in Provoland understand Aztec frustration with Replygate?
It’ll take more years of controversy, more lousy press, and political wrangling before BCS is ever forced to deal with its apartheid system. Maybe when they finally take a $$ hit, or some of their elite teams are upset at home. There’s more quality kids to spread nation wide. That’s good for all of us and bad for them.
Wife and I created that phrase after watching Marty, our 24-pound tabby licking himself.