It is being reported today that University of Virginia will decline any invitations from bowl games that will be played between December 13th and December 21st, therefore eliminating the Cavaliers from participating in the Champs Sports Bowl (formerly the Tangerine Bowl) in Orlando, Fla., on December 21st.
What a bowl season for the ACC, eh? With Clemson self imposing a bowl ban this year due to the embarassing brawl in their last game with South Carolina, the ACC’s bowl scenario is unorthodox at best.
The University of North Carolina has already accepted an opportunity to play a Big East opponent in the Continental Tire Bowl that Virginia has won each of the two seasons of the bowl existence. With Virginia’s loss this weekend to Virginia Tech, the Cavs are (at best) a “long shot” for a Peach Bowl bid in Atlanta (played on December 31st). Whichever two institutions fail to represent the ACC in the BCS amongst Miami, Virginia Tech, and Florida State all have more worthy and more attractive options for the Gator and Peach Bowls. Thereofre, due to the Cavs newly announced bowl standards, the blue field and cold weather of MPC Computers Bowl in Boise, Idaho (December 27th) maybe their only option.
I guess you have to give the Cavs some credit for taking advantage of a situation for the best public relations benefit as possible. Playing the “academics” card here surely will play well with the rest of the country. As an astute poster on Pack Pride points out, I wonder if Virginia’s administration will exercise similar “standards” and withdraw the Cavs from the ACC &/or NCAA Basketball Tournaments? I also agree with his hypothesis that the Cavs may be trying to bully themselves into the Peach Bowl in hopes that the Champs Sports Bowl would fight hard for more locally-based, Florida State.
Shouldn’t schools who derive so much benefit from their affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference feel some level of obligation to inform the ACC (and their fans, their players, and their recruits), of decisions like these BEFORE the conference puts together its bowl agreements?
Virginia is a part of this conference, and therefore they have obligations to the rest of the schools and the league’s administration. If these are the parameters by which a school elects to impose, then it sure would be nice for the conference to know about it before hand. After holding the entire conference hostage during expansion in 2003, the Cavs continue to exhibit a level of audacity and selfishness that only one other conference affiliate could dream about.
