Every March, as the madness envelops us, so do college football writers who can only write so much about what the Power Four is doing. In theory, it should be good! These are talented, well-read, well-informed sports writers with decades of experience on their pens.
But it isn’t always for the better.
Unfortunately, we here at Mid-Major Madness need to put on our CNN Certified Fact Checker hats on.
Yahoo Sports college football writer Ross Dellenger wrote that, during the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, five power conference teams beat “so called mid-majors.”
He then proceeded to rattle off that list of games, let us know when you see it:
Florida downed UConn.
Auburn outlasted Creighton.
Arkansas upset St. John’s.
Alabama cruised past Saint Mary’s.
Houston beat Gonzaga in one of the tournament’s best games.
Now, dear reader, Ross counted five, but we here at the Mid-Major Madness Fact Check Department count one. Dellenger made the bold claim that the Big East Conference constitutes a mid-major league, and placed Gonzaga among our spunky group of non-power teams.
Fact Check: It does not
Second Fact Check: Gonzaga isn’t a mid-major either
To be fair to Dellenger, he replied to his story on Twitter that he should have used “non-FBS” instead of “mid major” but that isn’t fully true, given UConn has an FBS football program, but alas.
Dellenger’s reasoning seems to stem from his focus as a football-centric writer, and his story falls to that. His protagonists from a narrative standpoint are all traditional football Power Conference admins — Duke’s AD, Greg Sankey from the SEC, Houston’s AD (albeit, Houston was very recently a mid-major), Kansas State’s AD, and Kansas’ AD.
Meanwhile, his narrative antagonist appears to be the rowdy underdog the Big East, which gasp is able to spend more on basketball because many of its members (excluding UConn) don’t have FBS football programs — because of the soon-to-come revenue sharing model.
Schools will be able to directly share revenue with athletes come this summer.
While schools in the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and ACC will spend most of their revenue on their football programs, mid-major leagues and non-football Power Conference like the Big East, could see the money skew more towards hoops, or at least more evenly given many mid-majors have FCS or Group of Six football teams.
Memphis, considered a mid-major by us and a Group of Six team in the pigskin sport, is also noted as a school that can be a threat to the powers that be in the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC.
Dellenger’s story is well done, and his sources bring up an interesting idea.
But is it that bad?
Is it so bad that non-football schools are able to juice their hoops teams just a bit, especially while we see the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament devoid of any non-Power Conference teams for the first time in years?
My answer: No.
Power Conference programs are full of former mid-major talent who (rightfully!) chased the bag and found success. Revenue sharing won’t make a disparity for mid-majors. It will level the playing field back.
We will see a correction.
