I'll be at the Motor City Pizza Pizza Bowl, and I hope MSU is too...

If you want to find me on Dec. 26th, my friends know to just look somewhere in downtown Detroit. I've enjoyed the Motor City Bowl almost every year, and not for the stellar matchup on the field. It has just been an event, a gathering of my friends, and often the last live football game I see each year. Plus it's cheap.

On years where there is a chance that a Big Ten team will be in it, I often buy my tickets several weeks before the end of the season, forking over the higher ticket money for some pretty good seats. This season you'll see me sitting on the 40 yard line. And hopefully, I'll be cheering on Michigan State.

Why would I want MSU to go to this game this year? First and foremost, my personal selfish reasons: It would save me a lot of money, and I already have great seats! It's hard to argue with that, right? If I have tickets either way, I would be pretty weird to be rooting for Middle Tennessee Atlantic Gulf Academy against Central Michigan. But my rational makes sense for a lot of people: It's close and it would save money.

First, lets look at the general fan perspective. There is no possible bowl location this year where more MSU fans could cheer on their team. Look at the Final Four as an example. Detroit turned green that weekend, and there were three other teams supposedly playing too. Sure, the importance of the Motor City Bowl isn't on par with the Final Four, but if MSU can sell fans 74,000 tickets to see them play Montana State in East Lansing, they should be able to sell 50,000 tickets to play someone better in Detroit. Where travel, hotel, tickets, food, other attractions and souvenirs for either the Alamo Bowl or the Insight Bowl would place a trip out of price range for many Michigan families, a day trip to Detroit with dinner at the Coney Island after the game is not much more than going to the movies on a Friday night.

Plus, if you are a hard core State of Michigan sports fan, you could decide to catch MSU in the noon game, and then either the home Pistons or home Red Wings game that night. You'll probably not even see those on TV if you traveled down to Texas or Arizona. The City of Detroit could use the extra tax dollars, and if we want a Motor City Bowl to be around much longer, at some point it would be nice if it actually sold out, or even came close. And the only way that is likely to happen is with Michigan State, Michigan, or perhaps Notre Dame in attendance. Weren't all of those feel good stories on TV about how great it was for Detroit that MSU was in the Final Four nice? You could get your DVR ready for a whole bunch more of those!

Now, lets look at a school perspective. Even before this week's embarrassing "excuse me for a minute Mom while I run across the street and kick the crap out of some short guy" episode, Detroit was not a bad option. Financially speaking, MSU spends a lot of money to play in a bowl. Sure, I'll buy your argument that MSU makes a lot more money, and the bowls pay a lot of expenses. Plus money goes to the Big Ten and is then split between the teams to help everyone. But even with a smaller overall payout to MSU coming from the Detroit game than another possible game, MSU could choose to dramatically save money on their expenses. Just look at all of the people we travel: Football team and staff, athletic department staff, administrators and Board of Trustees, University Relations, SAF (Sparty), Spartan Marching Band, cheerleaders, Spartan Radio, high level donors, Alumni Association staff. We could treat a trip to Detroit like any other bowl game, where many of them get sent days early and put up in hotels, many receiving per diem for every meal. But if MSU plays in Detroit, we wouldn't HAVE to. Many of these people wouldn't need a hotel at all, and if they did it may only be for one night, not three or more. You can forget the cost of the chartered airline plus the additional airfare for all of the people who are not on the chartered flight, plus the cost of the semi trucks of equipment driving across the country (Yeah, we truck the helmets and pads and tubas).

There is a fair argument for the element of prestige. Playing in Detroit is simply not as cool as playing in Texas or Arizona. It may not look as appealing to recruits, to fans hoping for that trip to warm weather, or to the high school student whose looking for a school to apply for college (and is not as interested in how great the Math department is). But I'll make this argument for prestige: It is more prestigious to sell out your ticket allotment and then another 30,000 tickets than to leave half your section empty. It is more prestigious to compete and win a game than to get blown out by 50 against Oklahoma or Texas Tech. It is more prestigious to have your team take the field to thunderous cheers than the boos from the sea of Orange or Red that would far out-number those wearing green. And it is more prestigious to look at this team's goals from the beginning of the season, and be able to say "accomplished." A big goal this season was to WIN a bowl game, not just go. No matter where MSU goes, they will have gone to three straight bowl games, something that has not been done in a long time. That's pretty prestigious too.

So even though I have been hoping for their destination to be Detroit for a while, my mind was firmly made up this week after "the incident." The effect on fan enthusiasm for traveling to a bowl could simply be devastating. If this had happened a few weeks earlier, or a week later, it may not have mattered as much. But the site is announced Sunday, and it came out this week. The timing simply could not be worse for trying to excite fans and trying to sell tickets.

The scenario I fear is that MSU will draw the Alamo Bowl and have to play Oklahoma. For the third straight year, MSU would play the top QB prospect going into the NFL Draft. Winning that game would be difficult at best, and with 6+ starters possibly out for the bowl, it would take darn near a miracle. Knowing this, a large number of fans that may have attended the game now stay home, and our reputation as a school that travels well is hurt badly. That hurts our future bowl selections. And losing the game badly doesn't impress recruits or anyone else. So we would spend a lot more money to go and hurt our recruiting, our future bowl selection chances, and our pride.

Now picture what I've been picturing for the last month: 65,000 screaming fans in green, a bowl victory, family and friends all around, tailgating with hot chocolate and snow football, and an athletic department that can save enough money on the trip to avoid having to make cuts to Volleyball and Wrestling. Recruits with smiles on their faces, and TV stories about how this MSU team has adopted the City of Detroit, lifting it from the ashes one more time, instead of TV stories about our how we didn't travel half our team cause they are thugs.

Either way, I'll be at the Motor City Bowl on December 26th. I just hope MSU is too.

Skandalaris' Selling Point

I had a chance to tour the Skandalaris Football Building on my visit back to MSU for the spring football game, just me and a friend inside - apart from a bunch of recruits. We didn't talk to them (heck, I don't think we really made eye contact), but it was interesting to observe how they went through the building.

For those who haven't been inside, the place is palatial. The national championship trophies sit at the front. On the walls are photos of the glory days, past and present. The skill trophies, including Charles Rogers' Biletnikoff as the nation's top wide receiver, stand proud in their own cases. The center even has an elevator shaft shaped like a football.

That was all fine well and good, but the thing that really caught these recruits' eyes was the helmet display. Each NFL team's helmet is on the wall above the names of every Spartan who played for them. The kids lingered there, one eying the Pittsburgh Steelers segment, another fixated on the Bears.

It was an instructive moment. For all the selling point of State - the Michigan and Notre Dame rivalries, solid academics, the chance at a bowl game - the best chance to land your average recruit is to convince him that this is the best place he can go if he wants to play on Sundays.

Which brings us to this past weekend's NFL draft. More specifically, how just one Spartan was drafted - Javon Ringer in the 5th round to Tennessee. QB Brian Hoyer, ranked as the number four QB in many draft previews, now sits as ESPN's #8 best guy not drafted (he was signed as a free agent to the Patriots).

But keep in mind, MSU isn't selling kids on John L. Smith's recruiting prowess. They're selling the new sheriff in town, Mark Dantonio. And at last check, Cincinnati (his former school) had six kids drafted.

Which brings us back to those kids and those helmets. You could see it in the way their faces lit up. Maybe, they must have thought, just maybe, if I went here I'd have a shot.

MSU's Draft Legacy

Michigan State has become legendary in the first round of the NFL draft, but not in the way most Spartans would like. Unlike schools like Southern Cal and Miami, which are known for phenomenal first round successes, MSU has developed a reputation for high-profile draft busts.

As proof, I give you ESPN's Mock Draft for the Ages: A hypothetical account of how an NFL draft, with every player throughout history available, would go today based solely on their own draft stock coming out of school. MSU was the only school with two top-10 picks. State tied USC for first with three first-round picks. But ugh, what picks.

Pick 3 (Chiefs) - Bubba Smith, DE

This is the one slightly redeeming pick of the three. Smith played nine seasons in the NFL, going to two Pro Bowls and winning the 1970 Super Bowl with the Baltimore Colts. It's a very good career. A career most NFL players would kill for. Hell, he's still a legend among older football fans in Baltimore. A solid if not spectacular pick at number three, given that Smith didn't quite have a Hall of Fame pro career.

Pick 6 (Bengals) - Tony Mandarich, OT

Had it not been for a certain young whippersnapper from Washington State named Ryan Leaf, Mandarich might be viewed as the biggest draft bust of all time.

Mandarich was a beast in college. 6'6, 320 pounds of pure brick muscle. He flattened opposing players. He flattened opposing players while they were doubling him up.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, he did it all while ingesting enough steroids to stun a dead mule. And then there's the pain killers and booze he turned to in a futile effort to dull the constant pain in his freakish body. Mandarich told ESPN in a recent article (see link above) that he was drunk each and every day for four seasons with the Green Bay Packers and taking in up to 70 painkilling pills a day. That's a little more than an ENTIRE BOTTLE of pills each day.

Suffice it to say, NFL scouts aren't high on drafting the next Tony Mandarich.

Credit to Mandarich though, he eventually got his life back in order. He made a comeback with the Indianapolis Colts and now is trying to convince young people to not go the same route he did.

Pick 20 (Lions) - Charles Rogers, WR

I think this is ESPN's idea of a sick joke at the expense of Lions fans everywhere. Rogers, who at just 27 years old is in his prime as a receiver, should have spent late March and early April this year getting ready for the upcoming season. Instead, he spent it in the Oakland County jail for violating probation in a domestic violence case.

It's the latest in a long storied fall for Rogers, the "fire" part of the ill-fated "Smoke and Fire" partnership between himself and QB Jeff Smoker at the end of the infamous Bobby Williams era. Both dealt with drug problems in their own way - Smoker got suspended from State, came back and is now playing in the Arena League. Rogers got suspended in the NFL and, well, never made it all the way back.

The drug and behavior problems, his oft-injured collarbone, it all adds up to a big-time NFL draft bust.

It's not that MSU hasn't had good pros. Joe DeLamielleure is a Hall of Famer. Flozell Adams may get there. Morten Andersen is the best kicker in NFL history. Plaxico Burress, despite his recent dalliances, gave the Giants their last Super Bowl win. But we'll need a sure-fire first round stud or two to shake the Mandarich-Rogers legacy.

Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated