ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JOE KLEINSASSER
Almost everyone loves a cupcake. But no one loves cupcakes more than major college football coaches.
For the uninformed, a cupcake is a university that fields a football team willing to go anywhere to be beaten by anybody if the price is right.
This year, the University of Buffalo has seven road dates and five home appearances. As Pete Thamel reported in the New York Times, the hapless Bulls, perennial losers, are in such demand as a visiting cupcake that their fee for appearing at a big school has risen to $600,000.
The powerhouse university football teams know that home cooking is a good thing. For many, the only time they leave home is when they have to play the obligatory road games as part of their conference schedule.
Playing at home pays off in a big way when you pack in 60,000 to 100,000-plus fans. Why risk playing on the road when you can usually win at home against inferior competition?
A win is a win, right? And the more you win, the better your chances of going to a major post-season bowl game.
The more bowl games you play, the more attractive you are to recruits, to the fan base, to television, etc.
Besides money, what’s the point of playing cupcakes? Powerhouse U might argue that it helps young players gain game experience. But quite simply, it’s one less game that PU has to play against a team that might actually beat them. Sometimes competition stinks.
Fortunately, there are still some fan-friendly non-conference games such as Ohio State versus Texas, and USC against Notre Dame. But for every one of those attractive matchups, there are 100 others pitting PU against Cupcake U.
Writing for ESPN.com, Gregg Easterbrook says, “All cupcake teams can draw inspiration from Saturday’s game in Boulder, where the University of Colorado was beaten by Division I-AA Montana State, which Colorado had hired expecting an effortless walkover.
“And let’s hope that as the price of visiting cupcakes continues to rise, at least this will improve the Gini coefficient of college football, reducing inequity of funds.
“This year Nebraska is paying Troy University $750,000 to come and presumably get clobbered, raising the cupcake prevailing rate close to the million mark.
“Wouldn’t it be a great day if Troy won! Regardless, likely-to-lose teams demand $1 million per appearance! It’s a seller’s market; max out the price of your services!”
On occasion, the cupcakes are anything but as Florida State found out recently, coming from behind late in the game to nip Troy.
Give the high schools and NFL credit. Those teams have to play the good teams with the bad, half of the time at home and half of the time on the road. They don’t have the luxury of making a schedule to their liking.
Easterbrook also writes, “Taking the season off and then demanding a bowl bid became easier for the football factory schools this season as Division I expanded to 12 games. The added weekend makes financial sense, given that big-school football is among the few collegiate sports that is a net producer of revenue.
“But with a 12-game slate and six wins required for bowl eligibility, an orangutan could coach a top 25 school into a bowl.”
It seems contradictory that the powers-that-be in the NCAA eschew a football playoff system in Division I because it requires too many games and it takes student-athletes out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, they allow the number of regular-season games to expand. I guess student-athletes from PU don’t lose much study time playing an extra home game. But what about the poor student-athletes from Cupcake U who have to play an extra road game?
Colleges and universities have long prided themselves on being bastions of open-mindedness and political correctness, but when it comes to scheduling football games, the message is clear: You can have your cupcake and eat it, too.