I guess it's out of the question to ask Michigan for mercy when the Wolverines toy with Hawaii Saturday to close out the Rainbows' 1998 football season. ‘Cats definitely
not the ‘class’
of the Big TenIt seems that Big Ten football is a different animal. A mean one. And they tell me that a wolverine can be a nasty critter.
For one thing, Michigan will come to town a little upset, having lost to Ohio State. And with a "poll" game against the Rainbows, the 15th-ranked Wolverines will need to win by at least 50 points if they want to improve their ranking and secure a better bowl game.
So they can be excused if they run up the score against the Rainbows. And UH fans shouldn't boo them for taking no prisoners against an 0-11 team that's the worst in college football.
But the Hawaii faithful -- some 18,000 -- had every right to boo classless Northwestern for doing a gridiron version of a shoe job on the hapless Rainbows Saturday at Aloha Stadium.
Actually, when you come right down to it, the Wildcats can't really be faulted for running it up.
AFTER all, they've lost more football games than any other team in history.
Yes, even more than the Rainbows. But if they keep up their losing ways, it'll only take another 15 years or so for the 'Bows to catch up.
For the record, Northwestern has been on the losing end of 551 football games. Hawaii has lost 340 since it first started playing the game in 1909, although a whole bunch have come lately.
D'Wayne Bates, Northwestern's star receiver, had a chance to set a Big Ten record, according to Northwestern coach Gary Barnett. Kind of a high-schoolish mentality, but what the heck. Records are meant to be broken, right?
To me, though, the real reason the Wildcats scored a needless touchdown in the final minute was that they didn't want to be identified as a point-shaving team like their school's basketball team.
To Bates' credit, he didn't think trying to set an NCAA record at Hawaii's expense was the right thing to do.
"When they started to boo, I signaled to Coach Barnett not to go for the record," Bates said.
"It wasn't the right thing to do. We've been on the wrong end of the scoreboard a few times this season, and I wouldn't have appreciated somebody trying to set the record on me."
Rainbow coach Fred vonAppen didn't feel an apology by Bates or Barnett was necessary.
"I think you run up (scores) on yourself," vonAppen said.
NO question, it was the Rainbows' ineptitude -- so what's new? -- that set the stage for what happened.
Ultimately, it boils down to one thing. Get better or don't bitch.
And in the last three years, the Rainbows haven't got any better.
In 1996 -- vonAppen's first season -- Wisconsin freshman sensation Ron Dayne ran for 339 yards in a 59-10 romp of UH. And he sat out the fourth quarter.
Dayne could easily have broken the NCAA single-game rushing record. He needed only 57 more yards -- or maybe five more carries the way he was running wild that night.
What did Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez do?
"Three quarters was enough," Alvarez said. "I like to break records. But I like records to be broken in the context of the game. In the third quarter, the game was still in the balance. When he finished at the end of the third quarter, the game was out of reach. There was no reason to keep him in."
If nothing else, it shows that it's a jungle out there in college football. And that a Badger isn't as chicken as a Wildcat. As for a Wolverine, who knows?