The annual bowl selection show can often serve as a premature Christmas present for athletic programs across the nation.
For Louisiana Tech, the present was offered, but the Bulldogs refused to do the unwrapping.
A team that held one hand on a BCS bowl berth earlier in the season became picky, and arrogant when it was reported that La. Tech had received, and declined an invitation to the Independence Bowl.
Athletic director Bruce Van De Velde, aware that better bowl options were available, refused an offer to play Lousiana-Monroe in Shreveport, the state’s capitol. In other words, Van De Velde dismissed the perfect bowl game and a more attractive offer never came.
After concluding the season 9-3, Sonny Dykes will be reminiscing about what could’ve been, as will the team’s 31 seniors.
One must feel for those seniors, many of who helped the Bulldogs’ offense become the best in the nation, averaging an FBS-leading 51.5 points-per-game. Those 51.5 points-per-game were good enough to close in on, and nearly upset, Johnny “Football” Manziel-led Texas A&M. On the other hand, allowing five of your opponents to put up at least 40 points, while letting three more score at least 30, should be enough to limit any team’s bowl options.
Van De Velde was convinced otherwise.
“Nobody turned a bowl bid down,” he told the Associated Press. “We asked for more time to vet two other opportunities that we had that we felt good about.”
Directors of the Independence Bowl, fearful that they would have to reserve to inviting a subpar six-win team, weren’t willing to take that chance, and rightly so.
Bowl chairman Jack Andres set a deadline for La. Tech, which Van De Velde and co. failed to meet.
A piece of advice for the impatient Mr. Van De Velde — if your three-loss mid major program has an opportunity to play in the postseason, the last thing you should be is selective.
Financially, the Independence Bowl may not have been the best option. For the team’s seniors, which include the nation’s second-leading passer (Colby Cameron) and fourth-leading receiver (Quinton Patton), a less ideal bowl game is more optimal than no bowl game.
And I use less ideal with hesitation — the Independence Bowl would’ve pitted two of the state’s best programs against each other at a location less than two hours away from either university.
The lack of leadership on the athletic director’s part is blasphemous, asinine even.
Dykes’ frustration mimicked that of former Bulldog basketball player and NBA legend Karl Malone.
“Under no circumstances did I ever think there was any possibility at all that we would not play in a bowl game,” Dykes tweeted. “It is a shame that our nationally recognized team and its 31 seniors have to end the season this way.”
Malone was “heart broken and embarrassed that our university would do this to Tech. nation.”
In a college football world dominated by financial implications and greed, there are moments when the best interests of the players who make the sport what it is should be considered ahead of anything else.
Dykes, Cameron and Patton did everything in their power to put together a “perfect season”. Outscoring national powerhouses Oregon, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State may be as close to perfect as a mid-major program can get.
I would go to the extent that Van De Velde’s termination may be the next necessary step for La. Tech’s administrators.
At the least, he should be cleaning coal out of his stocking Christmas morning.
Theo Lawson can be reached at [email protected]