SMQ: UMBC March Madness win reveals folly of college football system

UMBC became the first No. 16 seed to win a March Madness game over a No. 1 seed. It was another jab at the lack of Cinderella stories in college football.

On Thursday night in the first full round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, UMBC took down Virginia 74-54. It was the first time in the tournament’s long history that a No. 16 seed knocked off a top seed. Even better, the Cavaliers were the top overall seed in the tournament when they were blown out.

The landmark victory by the Retrievers wasn’t lost on the college football world. UCF, the only team to go undefeated in the 2017-2018 college football season, piped up on Twitter to congratulate UMBC on making history.

https://twitter.com/ucfknights/status/974852800193728513

The shout-out to the Retrievers led to a back-and-forth lovefest between the two schools on Twitter that included UMBC referring to the Knights as the national champions. Both programs’ social-media directors had some fun with the situation.

The exchange on Twitter came on the heels of more significant news. A recent report from Joyce Julius & Associates monetized the impact of the undefeated season. The report, commissioned by the school, found the Peach Bowl run last season to have been worth as much as $20 million in advertising for the school.

This, of course, is an estimate and not actually something that the school saw in terms of real profit. Rather, this is one agency’s attempt to put a dollar figure on the “Flutie effect” that comes from landmark performances like the Knights’ journey to 13-0.

Don’t get lost in the dollar figure listed. What it reveals is that UCF remains relevant even as March Madness rages.

Even if it is a bloated figure from a partisan source commissioned by the school as part of its PR campaign after the big season, it is hard to argue against the notion that running the table provided some net popularity gain for the Knights.

UCF has enjoyed plenty of talk about its team, even months after the end of the CFB national championship game. Despite the fact that head coach Scott Frost departed Orlando for his alma mater, the Knights continue to draw regular attention. months after the Peach Bowl. Even the NFL added fuel to the fire, honoring the Knights at a ceremony during the Pro Bowl weekend.

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Especially with March Madness underway, the Knights were bound to get renewed attention. But the UMBC upset revealed the starkest possible contrast between March Madness and the College Football Playoff.

In one, 68 teams enter the tournament and all have hopes of making it through the single-elimination field alive to the end. In the other, only four teams get a shot at playing for the crown. When power-conference champions are left on the sidelines, after all, the curve will always be especially steep for mid-majors from the Group of Five trying to get a shot at the title.

It doesn’t have to be this way. College football could easily enjoy the publicity of more Cinderella stories.

As we discussed in last week’s column, there is real economic and competitive value to expanding the College Football Playoff. UMBC offered an additional reason to consider an expansion of the field beyond the four teams that get in now.

On one hand, those opposed to an expanded playoff can look at the fact that it took 34 years before a No. 16 seed managed to pull off the upset of a top-ranked opponent in the opening round. That dismissive outlook sees the rare win by a bottom-three seed as an anomaly rather than something to be celebrated.

On the other hand, the fact that there were 133 games featuring a 1-vs.-16 matchup demonstrates that even the smallest schools can dream big. Even if just for one night, the chance exists for Cinderella to pull off one shining moment in a way it simply doesn’t in college football. March Madness shows what real opportunity can look like for college sports.

The gulf between Power Five and Group of Five teams is nowhere near as wide as the major conferences want college football fans to believe. A long track record of victories in New Year’s Six games as well as in earlier BCS Buster showdowns shows that opportunity begets success.

An expanded playoff would afford the sort of drama that just cannot be replicated by one-off bowl games.

The biggest roadblock to a more expansive playoff system has always been the tradition of bowl games. In an alternate universe, the emergence of these games would have been folded into a bracket system long ago. These games were hardly an inevitable outgrowth of the sport. Rather, they are an appendix that continues to exist within the college football body.

But a postseason structured around a playoff wouldn’t have to kill bowl games. There would undoubtedly be a contraction from the calendar. The number of bowl games has ballooned in the 21st century. Already we have seen some games like the Poinsettia Bowl fall by the wayside. But the exhibitions that survived an expanded playoff could still exist as the consolation prizes they have already become.

The emergence of the College Football Playoff indicates the time of bowls as a viable postseason reward for the best teams has obviously passed. While fun, these games offer neither a shot at a championship nor real equality of opportunity. It is only a matter of time until we see the playoff expand to eight, 16, and possibly beyond.

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The Retrievers showed the sports world how fun an upset can be when they took down top overall seed Virginia. It was a dose of March Madness that showed why the NCAA Tournament draws so much interest.

Now time remains to be seen as to how long it will take until we get to see college football’s equivalent of UMBC get a real shot at bringing the spirit of March Madness to the gridiron.