Entrepreneurial Floridians Pick Up Banner for Playoff

Written by Kirk Bolhs of the Austin Statesmen....Actual Article - BCSBASH.com

The idea came to them innocently enough while they were sitting through an NFL game last fall, watching their beloved Jacksonville Jaguars.

Chris Telmosse and his 26-year-old nephew, David Truax, are hardcore college football fans, and they'd decided they'd had enough of all the foot-dragging over a college playoff system.

So they decided to take matters into their own hands and steer the sport in the right direction.

They hit the road.

They borrowed Chris' father's RV, decorated it with an expensive, faux-pigskin wrap trumpeting a boycott of next season's national championship game in order to hurt the advertising sponsors and set out west proclaiming their message for a 16-team playoff.

They left Jacksonville, Fla., on April 14 and have stopped in Auburn, Ala., Baton Rouge, La., and College Station. They showed up in Austin on Monday. They won't rest until they've sold their BCSbash.com T-shirts at $9.95 a pop, visited with playoff proponent Sen. Orrin Hatch in Utah, toured seven Big 12 campuses and gotten the word out. Or until their RV's septic tank goes on the blink, whichever comes first.

The two have it right. Hit 'em in the pocketbook, the only language any sport speaks.

They're asking the nation's fans to not watch the BCS national title game Jan. 7 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

"All we're asking is one freakin' night," said Truax, a curly-haired, bespectacled graphics major at Florida State College.

"If we can affect them at all monetarily just a little bit, it has a chance," said Telmosse, a 46-year-old businessman who sold his company that dealt with back-to-school college products but is spending his own money on this adventure, other than a donation from Sign Zoo toward the RV wrap. "We'd been talking about this for a couple of years and finally said, 'We should do something.' Everybody wants it."

Well, not everybody.

There still are dozens of college presidents, outside of those at Florida, Georgia and most non-BCS schools like Utah, Boise State and Tulane, resisting a playoff. Some athletic directors still are anti-playoff. And many of the 120 Division I-A football coaches oppose the idea because they are content with the idea of reaping the considerable glory that comes with winning the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl.

Why is it that college football fans and media are the only ones working for change in a sport that clings to the past like a family heirloom?

Telmosse and Truax can spend up to $10,000 of their own money, drive thousands of miles in a used RV whose shower has flooded and whose 66-gallon gas tank costs $150 to fill, and spread the word that college football needs to join the 21st century. Meanwhile, the game's hierarchy smugly wags its finger at the people who pay the bills and actually build these grand, new stadiums with their luxury suites and outsized video boards and say a playoff would wreck the game.

Really? ESPN wouldn't need the inventory to fill all those December viewing slots? Advertisers would flock to the reality shows and not want to be part of the 33 bowl games?

"I don't know why they're so afraid of change," Telmosse said outside his RV.

Money, that's why. The six major conferences keep 90 percent of the money raised by those $18 million-paying BCS games and parse out the rest of the financial crumbs to the other 51 schools.

No one should really expect Congress to pick up the cause that state Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, has embraced or think the Utah attorney general's threatened lawsuit will bring about meaningful change for non-BCS schools. We all know unbeaten Utah had no shot at reaching the title game, no matter how many RVs hit the open road or how many banner-flying planes circle stadiums.

Only the fans can exact the change they want, and they have to stay away from college football games like overpriced Yankees tickets if they hope to succeed.

Telmosse risks missing his 18-year-old son's high school graduation and his 21st wedding anniversary — nobody tell his wife — and Truax lives in fear that Jim Rome will rip the pair of Floridians publicly or ESPN will firebomb their RV since it's shelling out $125 million to broadcast BCS games from 2011-14.

They know their timing is off because they could have a bigger impact in the fall. And they're not opposed to embarking upon a second trip then, although they're not eager to relive the smell of those rotting frogs that crept into the RV's holding tank or look for a Wal-Mart parking lot to stay in overnight.

They're driving a van for Longhorn, Trojan and Gator fans everywhere. Truax, however, has been forbidden to drive ever since he kissed the right side of the RV against a stop sign on the Florida State campus. But they have hope. More than 300 have voted for a playoff on their BCSbash.com Web site, and Telmosse allowed that "even the president is on our side."

Barring intervention by Obama or real teeth in Barton's legislation, these two and the rest of college football fans are on their own, hoping an opposing network might schedule an alternative on the night of the championship. At least, Telmosse and Truax are committed to boycotting next season's title game.

"Even if it's the Seminoles and the Gators," Telmosse promised. "Hey, we can always Tivo it."