Machiavelli, Sportsmanship, and College Football

Rivalry week of college football has just concluded. After seeing a few of these games and hearing about some of the events that historically have given this week of football it’s name, I am questioning sportsmanship’s place in college football today.

Perhaps one of the best-known rivalries in college football.

In our current collegiate sport environment, where athletic departments are under more and more pressure to win, and win often, there is an ongoing discussion asking “at what costs”. Niccolò Machiavelli, in his famous book, The Prince, outlines many components of successful leadership and power. I believe that college football programs have began to embrace a Machiavellian approach. Although this has led to a more competitive program, it has begun to remove the element of sportsmanship from the game.

Burke and Michigan Football’s Upcoming Head Coaching Search

Les Miles, the head football coach at LSU, is one of the early favorites to be Michigan’s next head coach

For once, it looked like the Michigan of old.  In its last game of the season with a bowl game and Coach Hoke’s job on the line, Michigan took the ball on its own five yard line and executed a masterful 95 yard drive that ended in a touchdown.  14-7 Michigan.   From there, things went downhill, and Michigan lost (again) to Ohio State, 42-28.   Michigan finished the year 5-7, and this all but guarantees that Coach Hoke will be fired.   Michigan will soon be conducting its third coaching search in seven years, and it can’t afford to make another mistake.  This is a pivotal time for Michigan Football, and there are many different opinions on who Michigan should hire as its next head coach. The early favorite is Jim Harbaugh, who is right below God for a lot of Michigan fans.   Other favorites include: Les Miles, David Shaw, and Greg Schiano.  With all of these candidates and the differing coaching genealogies each one has, what would Edmund Burke say?

Bo Schembechler: A True Machiavellian

Bo Schembechler is a God-like figure at the University of Michigan.

Bo Schembechler was one of the greatest ever to coach in College Football.

When Bo took over at Michigan, the football program was in shambles.  Michigan was coming off of a 50-14 defeat by Ohio State, in which legendary head football coach Woody Hayes opted to run up the score and go for two against Michigan on a late touchdown just to make it to 50 points.  For college football’s all time winningest program, it was flat out embarrassing.   When Bo took over in 1969, he ended up using that move by Woody Hayes as motivation, taping the score 50-14 on each player’s helmet during practice the week before the Ohio State game in 1969, where Michigan upset #1 Ohio State.  He ran one of the toughest conditioning practices in college football at the time, which lead 65 out of 140 players that showed up to camp to quit the team.  Bo then made one of the most legendary moves of his career, putting up a sign in the locker room that read “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions.”  Bo went on to become one of college football’s greatest all time coaches, posting a record of 194-48-5 (The 5 being ties).  He also won or shared thirteen Big Ten Championships, more than fulfilling his promise to his players that they would be champions.  He was inducted into the University of Michigan Hall of Fame, State of Michigan Hall of Fame, Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, and College Football Hall of Fame among numerous other awards and recognitions.

Machiavelli, Dunning, and SEC Recruiting

The SEC (Southeastern Conference) is a group of schools in the southeastern part of the nation that makes up an athletic conference similar in many ways to the Big Ten. For the past 10+ years, the SEC has been by far the most dominant team in college football. Winning 7 of the last 8 National Championships, and currently holding 5 out of the top 10 spots in the weekly AP poll of top teams. Very few people would argue about the strength of the SEC in recent memory, but where the controversy starts is in how they came to be so great at college football – and that’s where Machiavellianism comes in.

The Collapse of Michigan Football

Happy and dedicated U of M football fans

Being students at the University of Michigan, we all realize how important out football team is to the overall school, and how much money the school makes by having a successful program. In order to achieve this goal of a successful football program, our athletic department often pays schools, such as Appalachian State, with football programs in the lower-teir FCS conference (as apposed to the higher-teir FBS that Michigan and other Big 10 teams are in) up to one million dollars just to play our team. Our athletics program does this in the sole hope that the game against these types of teams will serve as an opportunity to boost fan morale and player confidence. Additionally, a blowout win (no matter who we are playing) will make boosters (people that add funds to the football program) extremely happy, and they in turn will give the athletics program at Michigan even more money!

We pay teams so that we can blow them out, and they make more money by doing so!