UT-Ex Ken Capps directs traffic at one of UT-OU's great traditions during game week.
By Mark Blaudschun
We've heard the sniping for months now--from various outlets, both young and old (mostly).
College football is not college football anymore.
Too much expansion, transfer portals and NIL deals. The latter is generating millions of dollars in compensation for college football players roaming the country looking for the best deals.
It's NOT college football.
And most of it is true.
College football is quickly becoming NFL-lite and will continue to do so.
The playoffs will be 12 teams for the first time in this season.
In a couple of years, they will be expanded to 16 teams (book it).
Even bigger super conferences could emerge.
What will not change is college football itself, the essence of the sport, which means drama each weekend of the fall, filled with great games, which include all the stuff CFB fans have learned to love: bands, fans storming the field, controversial plays. Heavy on passion and yes pageantry.
We had a discussion with former CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock at one of the week-long festivities surrounding Texas-Oklahoma week in Dallas.
Hancock, in his first year as a true fan, laughed when he recounted a conversation we had with him a few years ago when we were in one of our rants about the way the CFP was conducting its business
"Blau,'' said Hancock, with the patience of a parent listening to a whining child. ""You're in the sausage FACTORY. No one likes what goes on here. Get out of the building and enjoy the SAUSAGE.''
Which is what the critics of CFB need to do now.
Enjoy the GAMES each week.
Forget the process.
No better example of that was than what CFB gave us in the second week of October, starting with the Texas-OU game, which was a 34-3 Texas rout, but was another typical Red River Rivalry event, centered around a college football game at the Cotton Bowl in the middle of the Texas State Fair.
It's a great scene, filled with pageantry and history, perhaps best exemplified by Ken Capps, a prominent UT Ex, who is the epitome of what college football has always been about.
Capps is the unofficial social director of Texas-OU week in Dallas, highlighted by a cocktail party, pep rally at his Dallas home the Thursday of Texas OU week.
For several years, Bevo, the much revered Longhorn mascot at UT was a guest, which shows you how high up Cappas is in the UT chain.
Capps knows about public relations and marketing, having once served as the VP of Public Affairs at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, which has its own story line.
"My first day of work at DFW,'' Capps says with a knowing shake of his head, "was Sept. 11--2001.''
Capps then tells his then three-year-old son Austin (what else would you expect) to take care that first morning and hearing that a plane had hit the first tower at the World Trade Center in New York City.
Having only accepted the job the day before, Capps called the office to check in. ''Come on by, he was hastily told."
As he arrived at what was a chaotic scene at DFW, the second plane hit the second WTC tower. As Ken walked into his new office, he was immediately given a sheet of paper to sign. "I didn't know what my salary was or any of the other details,Capps. ''They just said sign this, which I did and learned that it was a life insurance policy. There were lots or rumors floating around, including one that DFW was the next target."
Capps then dealt with his first crisis, finding a way to unload and move the 400 planes and approximately 80,000 people who were grounded at DFW by the three-day shutdown of flights across the country that week.
Capps has moved on to other challenges such as participating in the hoopla surrounding UT as a legitimate contender for a national championship in football.
He is also well aware of how the game has changed since his student days in Austin more than 40 years ago. And he has adjusted.
As Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey, who is in every discussion when the most powerful people in college football are mentioned, stated last week that the state of CFB is fine.
Stop whining.
Enjoy the sausage.
#30