BASED on the number of friends, family and co-workers I have spoken to who say they’re heading to Florida this time of year, I’m guesstimating that 5-10 percent of all New Yorkers travel to the Sunshine State.
Snowbirds now have the option of remaining in the land of palm trees year ’round if they miss their college football. Florida Atlantic University athletic director Craig Angelo, whose Owls defeated Memphis, 44-27, in the New Orleans Bowl on Friday, says that if FAU continues to make progress at the same rate it has, the Owls will be competitive with any team in the nation in 10 years.
Don’t laugh, because that’s exactly the response Greg Schiano got when he arrived at Rutgers and said the Scarlet Knights would compete at the highest level. It’s also the same reception Jim Leavitt received at South Florida, which rose to No. 2 in the nation this season.
Angelo spent seven years at Miami, which emerged as one of the nation’s top programs in the early 1980’s under coach Howard Schnellenberger, who now just happens to coach FAU.
The Owls took two huge strides this weekend toward the goal of becoming relevant on the national stage. The first was beating Memphis. By winning the New Orleans Bowl, FAU got a huge boost in its efforts to fund and build a $65 million stadium on its campus in Boca Raton, Fla.
Mayor Steve Abrams, who initially was cool to the idea of a stadium, accompanied the Owls on their trip to New Orleans and returned a supporter of the program. He has pledged a parade after the New Year to honor the Owls.
Most of the money for the stadium will be raised in the form of bonds. But FAU must raise $8 million in private funds. The university had just under $2 million before the bowl game. That’s before a parade and before Boca residents realize they can have their very own luxury box in a stadium that also is looking to sell its naming rights.
With an on-campus facility and the wealth of talent in South Florida, it’s not crazy to think that a decade from now FAU might be a player in college football.
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Brigham Young (11-2) avenged one of its two losses of the season by edging UCLA, 17-16, in the New Orleans Bowl on a last-second blocked field goal attempt, giving the Cougars their first back-to-back, 11-win seasons since 1983-84, when the school won the national title.
College football snobs have deemed via the current system that a non-BCS school has almost no chance of such a repeat. But BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said he believes the Cougars are capable of cracking the system.
BYU, he said, is like no other program in the country. How many other programs, he asks, have a national title, a Heisman Trophy winner (Ty Detmer), three Davey O’Brien winners, two Outland Trophy winners, one Doak Walker winner, nine 11-win seasons and the X-factor?
Most of the BYU players are Mormon. Many of them have gone on missions and are married, meaning they are physically and likely emotionally more mature than most college athletes.
And Mendenhall is not going to let a weak non-conference schedule stand in his way. The Cougars play UCLA and Washington next year, Florida State and Arizona State in 2009, and Florida State and Washington in 2010.
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How much good will does a national championship buy a head coach? Lloyd Carr won it all in 1997 with Michigan and retired this season amid mounting criticism. He won or shared the Big Ten crown in 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2004.
Phillip Fulmer won the national title in 1998 with Tennessee and has zero SEC titles since then, a slew of off-field miscues by players, and the recent announcement that six players, including leading receiver Lucas Taylor and star linebacker Rico McCoy are academically ineligible for the Outback Bowl against Wisconsin.
Fulmer is expected to sign a one-year extension through 2012 which includes a raise, but there is a faction of Volunteers fans wondering if the dean of SEC coaches isn’t what he once was. Fulmer is 7-7 in bowl games and has lost three of the last four.