Denim Millward
Sports Editor
In NCAA athletics, so-called “bodybag” games are as common as the spread formation, painted chests and liquored-up frat boys.
These games pit powerhouse teams, usually from a higher division, against a much smaller and weaker opponent. The outcomes of these games are decided long before the contest starts, and the final scores are usually downright ugly.
The victors barely break a sweat, and the defeated team heads home with a severely wounded sense of pride and a fat paycheck given to them from the winning team. This payment is awarded to the victim of the “bodybag” game essentially for letting the bigger, stronger and faster team use them as a proverbial punching bag for four quarters.
Scheduling guaranteed losses and netting sizeable payments in return is seen by many athletic directors as an unpleasant but necessary aspect of collegiate athletics at smaller schools. Payment from a single game can pay for a very significant portion of expenses accrued across all sports at a given university. Thus, squads such as the Idaho State University football team are forced to face off against higher-level competition such as the University of Washington Huskies and Brigham Young University Cougars. As is virtually always the case, the Bengals found themselves on the wrong end of blowouts.
While the bounty the university earns by offering up their team as a sacrificial lamb is great and all, how is it even remotely fair to the players?
Not only does this system assure the team of failure, it makes the rest of the season, including the crucial conference games, exponentially more difficult, especially those that immediately follow a so-called “bodybag” game.
ISU head football coach Mike Kramer has mentioned the phrase “Division I-A hangover” multiple times this season when expounding upon reasons his players didn’t perform as well as he would’ve hoped.
If the adverse physical and mental effects of a bodybag game are that pronounced and long-lasting, and with multiple games of this type in a single season, how can the Bengals reasonably be expected to ever show significant progression?
The fact that the football team in its current state may not exist without these games is not lost on me. However, if the games significantly blunt the chances for success for the remainder of the season in games that actually matter, are these morale-killing defeats really worth the six-figure bounties they bring in?
If the end goal is really a winning program and not just a profitable one, isn’t it prudent to begin looking into alternative means of revenue?
And really, aren’t fielding a winning program and a profitable program one in the same? If the need for revenue from bodybag games is even in part from a lack of local financial support, consistent success would be the most potent and immediate solution to that problem.
It’s understandably difficult for fans to get excited and invest significant time and income in a team that is in the midst of a years-long streak of hopelessly losing seasons. When a team is unlikely to be successful anyway, it’s somewhat more palatable to schedule bodybag games. If it’s clear the season will be a dismal one regardless of opponent, why not earn some extra coin along the way?
But in cases where a team is on the upswing and shows real potential, as the ISU football team has shown numerous times this year, these games indelibly hamper the progress of the team. The Bengals have either won or have been competitive in every game they’ve played this season, save for the aforementioned contests against Washington and BYU.
Coach Kramer certainly seems to have the Bengals pointed in the right direction and primed to be competitive in the Big Sky Conference in the near future. But until guaranteed losses stop being exchanged for money, don’t expect the improvement process to be a quick one.
