Report: BCS Watchdog Was Previously A BCS Lapdog

Southern Miss AD Richard Giannini
reportedly took a cruise from Orange
Bowl organizers

It appears that Bowl Championship Series officials are trying to do what legions of fans and legislators couldn't...take down the Bowl Championship Series.

On the heels of an eye-opening report about graft and largesse surrounding the organizers of the Fiesta Bowl, comes a report from Yahoo's Dan Wetzel that the BCS has created a task force to investigate potential illegalities surrounding the other BCS bowls.

So who better to put on that task force than someone who took advantage of some of that glad-handing?

Giannini, the task-force member, was one of more than 40 administrators (plus spouses, of course) who accepted the Orange Bowl’s “complimentary getaway” to the Caribbean in June. He was pretty much just following the crowd. (He has not responded to attempts seeking comment). 

According to records obtained by PlayoffPAC, there wasn’t a single business meeting scheduled for the entire trip. The brochure did note that attendees would have time for things like a day on the private island of CocoCay, which “offers activities for everyone, from parasailing to sipping delicious ‘Coco Locos’ on a hammock.”

Of course now we're left to wonder not if the rest of the bowls are shady, but how shady they actually are. Something has to be going on to keep wretched games like the Hawaii Bowl and the Meineke Car Care Bowl afloat. It certainly ain't ticket sales.

Wait, let me rephrase. Schools have ticket guarantees they have to hit, so the bowl organizers are pretty much taken care of whether fans show up or not. Isn't it just a little curious that the attendance for all of these bowl games is exactly or close to the capacity of the stadium?

So while most of the college fooball-watching public has been clamoring for a way to slice up the golden egg so everyone can get a piece, The Powers That Be have had their hands firmly around the neck of the goose.