Toe to Toe – The infamous Bowl switch

Two combatants from Cogeco’s Sports Firing line Frank “The Toe” Caruso (left), and Chris Dawson (right) now take their arguments to the web with a BayToday.ca's weekly sports opinion feature called, “Toe to Toe.”

The NOSSA Sr. Football Champions from Sault Ste. Marie recently got their wish when OFSAA gave them back a chance to capture their 4th Central Bowl championship, instead of play in the Northern Bowl. Apparently OFSAA didn’t follow the proper protocol when making the change. Do you think the Soo’s protest was the right thing to do or should they have been satisfied with the Bowl game they were given?

Frank:

”If you were given the wrong Bowl game then I think you should go out and trounce the team that you play so that you can prove everybody wrong. You are given a chance to go to the Northern Bowl or the Central Bowl so you just go to those places and if you think you’ve been shafted and you have to play the Northern Bowl which you think isn’t as significant as the Central Bowl, then they should just destroy the Northern Ontario team from Thunder Bay. That’s what they do in the NCAA.

”For example, let’s take a look at U.S. College football right now. USC and Texas are both headed for the Rose Bowl and for the championship game, right. However, if one of them fails everyone is already saying that Penn State should be the next team to go in it. They are the fifth ranked team, but they should be going for the National Championship? LSU is already crying that they should be going into it. Team’s haven’t even lost yet and there is already jockeying to get that invitation for that National Championship, so it’s not a true playoff format, so you can’t play it, especially in high school. You can’t you don’t have enough time to do it.

“If you play in a bowl game and your ranked #4 and your opponent is ranked #11 then you better go and blow them out so you prove people wrong that you should have got a better bowl bid.

“So I think in the St. Mary’s Knights case they were a bunch of babies and should look at the system and deal with the bowl fate they were given.”

Chris:

“Well, Frank you make a great point about the College Bowl format. The only problem is, whether you like or dislike the fact that the St. Mary’s Knights had a lawyer present at the conference call this week, the fact remains that OFSAA made an error. So if St. Mary’s feels they should be playing in the Central Bowl which they are looking for an unprecedented fourth win, then they have every right to protest and ask for the switch.

“I think Widdifield Wildcats head coach Sean Mullan handled the situation tremendously and certainly could have stirred up a larger fuss against the Bowl change made four days before Bowl day. But he didn’t.

“OFSAA really appears to have dropped the ball on this one. What I don’t understand though is why North Bay schools knew back around NOSSA semi-final weekend that the NOSSA champion would play in the Northern Bowl, and apparently St. Mary’s wasn’t informed? That sounds a little fishy to me.

“Next year let’s see the Bowl format released to the team’s and the media back in September before the season begins so we don’t have to talk about Bowl swapping again next season.”

Toe to Toe can be seen every Friday on BayToday.ca