View From Bennett Avenue

With the amount of space given to debates over the legitimacy of the BCS--and at Sports Illustrated and The New York Times that discussion trumps all--college football journalism has failed to present accurate coverage of the sport. And if there is a modicum of space left for game previews and write-ups, the subject matter always centers on the stars of the game. That is true in all sports of course, after all how many articles or televised pieces centered on Matt Ryan of the Falcons compared to those focused on Brett Favre?

And so we are left with a BCS Title Game featuring Cam Newton and Nick Fairly of Auburn squaring off against Oregon's LaMichael James and, well, I guess Jeff Maehl. Maybe Casey Matthews. To be honest Oregon does not get much attention behind a "boy do they play fast" critique. But TE David Paulson and C Jordan Holmes joined Maehl and James on the all Pac 10 first team offense while CB Talmadge Jackson joined Matthews on the first team defense. CB Cliff Harris also made the first team for his punt returning and second team for his defensive play, while QB Darron Thomas, OT Bo Thran, DT Brandon Bair, DE Kenny Rowe and special teamer Bryson Littlejohn all made second team. Does anyone east of the Rockies say boo about these players? But before we blame East Coast media bias, the great majority of Auburn starters are unknown to the general football fan despite playing in the big, bad SEC. OT Lee Ziemba (pictured) and C Ryan Pugh joined Newton on the first team All SEC, while G Byron Isom, DE Antoine Carter and LB Josh Byrnes all made second team. And this is not to slight the other starters and contributors who all helped make these two teams undefeated.

The problem is that the media and the fans grew fat on some combination of USC, Texas, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Florida making the BCS game every year. There are too many FBS teams, so the coverage went to the presumed best every year, which of course helped them stay on top. With a number of stars departing for the pro ranks in recent years and the media firm in its conviction that a lack of a playoff system is on par with some horrific atrocity plaguing third world countries, the amount of space for the Spencer Paysingers and Darvin Adams is nonexistent. Last year we had stories on the BCS being bad, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow. This year it's the BCS being bad, Urban Meyer and Cam Newton.

It was not always this way, of course, and I am not talking about the glory days when college football ruled the sports pages. Take the 1981 Clemson Tigers, who won the title without even being ranked in preseason. They were 6-5 the season before and played in western South Carolina for a little-known coach. But before they played Nebraska in the Orange Bowl at the end of that season, the regular college football fan knew who QB Homer Jordan was, and that his favorite target was WR Perry Tuttle. The Tigers won on defense and regular fans knew the names of stars such as Jeff Bryant, Jeff Davis and Terry Kinard from the stop unit. And fans of the sport certainly knew that big William Devane helped clog the middle for that defense and that Cliff Austin, Chuck McSwain and Jeff McCall led a balanced running attack. But again, these players and their games were fully covered by a media that did not have to worry about a BCS or potential playoff. They, more or less, focused on the play on the field. We have lost something very important.