The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Yale deserved shot at postseason berth
We have a lot of wine connoisseurs in my family, so there are usually several bottles on the table at family dinners. Me? I’m not really into wine. Especially on Thanksgiving. That’s when I prefer to simply pour myself a nice, tall glass of gravy.
⏩ The first round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs was Saturday. How did Yale fare? Oh, right. The Ivy League is the only conference in the country that won’t allow its champion to compete for a football national championship.
Every year, the league’s football coaches fight for inclusion into the FCS playoffs only to be rebuffed.
“As a group, every year we’ve voted unanimously for the playoffs,” Yale football coach Tony Reno said on Saturday. “There’s a decision made at a higher level that keeps us where we are. I would love to be playing today. Our players would love to have the opportunity to play against the best teams in the country. That’s what it’s all about, right?”
Those opposed is that additional practices and games during the December reading period and final exams are not in the best interest of the athletes. There’s also no bye week in the Ivy season, so a postseason would require 11 to 14 straight games with no break.
It’s a hypocritical argument and an easily resolved dilemma.
The league could begin the season sooner and factor in a bye week for its eight member schools during mid-terms to be better rested for the postseason.
And since Ivy hockey and basketball teams already have practices and games during the December reading period, it’s hypocritical to deny football on those grounds.
It’s unlikely there’d be much of a conflict between football and final exams, anyway. Interference with exams would require a run all the way to the national semifinals. While not an impossible feat for an Ivy champ, it certainly wouldn’t be an annual occurrence against full scholarship programs, most with far less restrictive admissions standards.
The Ivy League allows every other team sport the opportunity to compete for national championships, several of which, most notably lacrosse and baseball, play through conflicts with the spring exam periods.
There doesn’t appear any chance of a resolution in sight.
⏩ Yale, had it been allowed to participate, likely would have drawn Central Connecticut State in the first round of the FCS tournament, an intriguing in-state matchup that might have attracted a nice crowd to the Yale Bowl on an otherwise football-free Thanksgiving Saturday.
⏩ Tom Beckett, Yale’s athletic director, is among the advocates for a pre-Christmas bowl game pitting the Ivy League champ against a Patriot League or MidEastern Athletic League opponent at a warmweather site like Orlando. Some in the league like the idea. Others prefer to focus the fight on the FCS tournament.
⏩ Yale and Harvard have an advantage over the rest of the league, playing each other annually in what is essentially its own bowl game, drawing national interest and massive crowds each fall. Still, the chance to play for a national championship would never diminish “The Game.”
⏩ UConn and Michigan State tipped off after midnight on Friday night. Whoops, I mean Saturday morning. Must have been a ratings bonanza for ESPN.
⏩ The Giants got the prime time slot on Thanksgiving night, an opportunity to showcase their ineptitude in the national spotlight. Fortunately for them, most of the country had dozed off after their nighttime turkey sandwiches.
⏩ Can we all stop pretending that cranberry sauce isn’t gross?
⏩ New Haven’s Tremont Waters scored a game-high 39 points as LSU lost to Marquette at the Maui Invitational on Wednesday. Waters is averaging 20 points through his first five collegiate games.
⏩ The hot topic on Francesa’s show this week was whether or not Mike could manage the Yankees (and it all started with a local caller…nice job, Elvis from Orange.) Here’s a shocker: Mike thinks he could do the job. But, ever the realist, he knows the Yankees won’t offer. They’ve got too much at stake. The Mets, on the other hand….
⏩ The endless conversation about a radio personality managing a sports team made me realize WFAN missed a ratings bonanza by not replacing Francesa with Rex Ryan.
⏩ Of the six main candidates to become the Yankees next manager, only one, Eric Wedge, has any major-league experience at the job. And that was five years ago, when he was canned by the Mariners.
At this point, the Yanks might as well introduce the ghost of Miller Huggins as their next manager. It’s clear that Brian Cashman plans to run a puppet regime, using a figurehead to sit in the manager’s office while he runs the show from behind the scenes.
⏩ Nebraska fired football coach Mike Riley, which means former UConn coach Bob Diaco’s time as defensive coordinator there is up, though he was likely finished anyway. The Cornhusker defense has been horrific this season.
⏩ You’d be hard-pressed to find an NBA player with an uglier shot than Lonzo Ball.
⏩ Word is each member of the Astros will receive a cool $438,000 bonus for winning the World Series, the largest share in history. That’s not a big deal to Justin Verlander (2017 salary: $28 million). He’s probably carries more than that in his wallet every day. To Carlos Correa, earning only a bit more than the league minimum, the bonus is 82 percent of his 2017 salary. Happy holidays!