Bullies, Billboards and Bowl Games

In honor of TCU’s bid to win college football’s national championship tonight, I give you a quick story.??

Now TCU hasn’t won a national championship since 1938, so it’s safe to say they’re due.??As a long-suffering Cubs fan who finally broke that curse, I can understand almost a century of disappointment.??But we needn’t go back a century . . just a decade or so for this story.

The modern college football championship (FBS) goes back almost a decade to the 2014 season.??In the few years right before this structured playoff system, there was a growing noise, resentment and controversy about the ranking of college football teams and the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). For every clear undefeated winner one season, there were a half dozen evenly positioned teams all with a title claim the next.??Players, fans, coaches and critics all were crying out for a change.??But shortly before that change, TCU was embroiled in rankings controversy . . .

TCU’s football team had an incredible run in the fall of 2010 going undefeated in the regular season. They went 12-0 in the regular season. They didn’t give up a touchdown in conference play until October 23rd. They were regularly crushing opponents and yet didn’t even get into the Bowl Championship Series rankings until week 13.??Suffice it to say they felt overlooked.?

Enter the old BCS process . .which was characterized by as much unclear data and drama as it was clarity. Things like “strength of schedule” were held up in lieu of other rankings, resume or revenue (and surely the selection committee thought about the TV ratings of a championship game).??So when it came time to select the national championship game, Oregon and Auburn were selected. Auburn went onto win after an undefeated season and were declared national champions with TCU winning the Rose Bowl, also finishing unbeaten, and ending the season with a #2 ranking in the college football polls.

But it was that Rose Bowl selection, paired to play Wisconsin, that generated the controversy. The Rose Bowl traditionally tilted the PAC 10 champions against the Big 10 winner in the pageantry of New Years Day bowl games. The exception to this was if one of those champions, in this case Oregon, was pulled into the BCS national championship game.??TCU, based on rankings to end the season, was then selected to face Wisconsin, the Big 10 champion, in the 2011 Rose Bowl.??TCU again went on to win this game and defeat the Big 10 champion and finish the post season ranked #2 in the country.

Now enter Gordon Gee, then president of another highly ranked Big 10 school, “the” Ohio State University. The Buckeyes entered the 2010 season ranked #2 in the national coaches poll and with high hopes after an 11-2 record the prior year. It's a storied program with a rich history of football success.??It ultimately became a year of controversy in the program with vacated wins, dismissed coaches and . . well, you can google it. But back to GG.??

When asked about TCU selection into the Rose Bowl to face the Big 10 champion (Wisconsin, not Ohio State) and potential shot at a BCS national title, Gee dismissed them, saying:

“I do know, having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it’s like murderer’s row every week for these schools,” Gee declared. “We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day. So I think until a university runs through that gauntlet that there’s some reason to believe that they not be the best teams to (be) in the big ballgame.”

An undefeated college football team, TCU . . dismissed out of hand and compared to a religious ministry caring for the elderly (can donate here btw -?https://littlesistersofthepoor.org/donate-to-lsp/).

?Insulting, no? It was a bully simply saying, you don’t belong.

Enter a group of mysterious TCU alums who had enough, and had enough of a sense of humor to do something.??They decided to drop a net around the Ohio State University campus with digital billboards touting the TCU victory in the Rose Bowl and brought to you buy . . . you guessed it . . .The Little Sisters of the Poor.??

To say this exploded that week in sports media is a understatement. This was Bleacher before Bleacher, Barstool before Barstool, it led SportsCenter for a few days and was carried globally by social media before social did that every single day like today. It was a funny. It was timely. It was topical. And you didn’t have to be a sports fan to like the idea of someone sticking up to a bully.

And then things went silent. These alums didn’t want to be named. No one gave interviews. No one wanted to talk. And the news cycle moved on as it does. I think everyone was more than a bit surprised quite how much visibility comes from virality.

A few years later, Gordon did apologize, made a donation and now moved on to be president of West Virginia University.??And more interestingly, 8 years later the alums did finally agree to talk about the story and share more (https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24660785/tcu-alums-claim-2011-ohio-state-billboard-prank). It’s worth a read before tonight’s game.

So we can all agree that standing up to bullies, good.??Fighting your way into a higher level of competition and acting like you belong might mean you really do belong, good.??And last but perhaps not least, I think we can also agree that this moment and this story and this memory would not have happened if only a social post, challenge or hashtag.??The manifestation of media in the physical world, in this case billboards right around your rivals house, is experienced differently as consumers, marketers, media scribes and cultural tribes.??Making statements, proclimations and promotions in the living, breathing and dynamics physical world just hits different. And, sometimes it's ok to be bold and be a challenger brand . . you might just end up on the biggest stage with a shot at the title.??Good luck to TCU tonight . . .not from the Little Sisters of the Poor.?