Columnist Ron Kantowski: Lesser known conferences deserve shot

Thursday, Sept. 2, 1999 | 10:31 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is sports editor of the Las Vegas Sun. Thursday columnist Steve Carp has the day off.

Tonight's UNLV at North Texas game marks the beginning of the John Robinson era in Las Vegas. It also will serve as a compelling kickoff to another NCAA Division I-A Lite campaign.

You won't find standings or a schedule for the NCAA's newest division, not even in agate type on the back pages of USA Today. Its two best teams don't get to play in their own championship game named for a long forgotten coach or sports writer -- can you say Amos Alonzo Stagg or Grantland Rice Bowl?

Not even Beano Cook has heard of Division I-A Lite. ESPN2 has, but only because The Deuce has to find a patsy -- er, partner -- so starved for attention that it would willingly move a November game in Laramie or Fort Collins to nighttime. Adrian Karsten (name your favorite obscure sideline reporter here) had better pack his parka and snowshoes.

In reality, Division I-A Lite exists only unofficially, sort of like an Olympic demonstration sport. It is comprised of the football-playing schools in the following conferences: Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference USA, Western Athletic, Big West, and any Division I-A independent which doesn't feature a leprechaun as its mascot and have an exclusive TV pact with NBC.

These are the schools that are little more than a figment of Roy Kramer's imagination.

Kramer is the commissioner of the Southeast Conference and chief instigator of the Bowl Championship Series, which is the next best thing to a national championship playoff system -- especially for the six heavyweight conferences whose champions are automatically represented. That would be the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12, Atlantic Coast and Big East Conferences.

These are the Christy Mathewson teams -- the Big Six who are assured of no fewer than six of the eight spots in the New Year's Day or Day After bowls. These are the games that pay their participants obscene amounts of money for visiting their respective region's tourist traps -- er, attractions -- prior to tossing around the pigskin.

Everybody else plays for pork rinds -- a Cotton Bowl berth.

There is a proviso that allows a Big Six outsider to qualify for the BCS as an at-large team. But it would take a turn of events more complex than the BCS ratings system itself for a party crasher to get past the BCS security force (Associated Press media poll, USA Today coaches poll, three sets of computer ratings, strength-of-schedule criteria and won-loss record that determine the BCS match-ups).

BYU actually thought it had its BCS stars lined up three years ago, when the Cougars beat Texas A&M in the Kickoff Classic, were ranked No. 5 and assumed the nation's longest winning streak. But the BYU constellation did not form a big payday. Lavell Edwards' bunch wound up pickin' cotton in Dallas.

The discrepancy in bowl payouts combined with the publicity the marquee games generate puts even more yardage between college football's haves and have-nots. As well intended as the BCS tries to be, it remains exclusionary.

If every Division I-A member pays the same dues, it should have the same chance to become champion. If you're going to let six conference champs into the BCS mix, then the other five need to be included. Just like in the NFL. Or on a little smaller scale, the U.S. Senate.

Capitol Hill should not be the only place where Utah and Nebraska are equally represented.