You can't lose if you don't play anyone

Commentary

What did the football team's 78-0 drubbing of Kentucky Wesleyan Thursday night prove?

It's now official: The football Salukis are clearly better than at least one NCAA team.

Before all of you football fans think this game is a turning point in the program, remember that SIU has been and will always be a basketball school, so expect the football team to dash your hopes.

No matter the score, the game only counts as one victory against one team that had one win last year and is one division below SIU.

Don't think that the amazing score is indicative of the football team's improvement.

The only thing proven to fans by Thursday night's game was the power of weak competition. We'll get a refresher of that lesson again when the Salukis face another Division II team, the vaunted West Virginia Tech Golden Bears, who don't even have to venture outside of their state for a conference game. Is it so surprising that we can rout a hapless team with no scholarships and a smaller enrollment than the high schools of many of our players?

SIU head coach Jerry Kill found the formula to improve on his team's 1-10 record.

Granted the Salukis are a young team that needed an inferior opponent as a kind of practice game - a game in which errors would not affect the outcome of the game.

Most of the Salukis players realize that this win carries little weight and that they made many mistakes that will need to be corrected before entering conference play.

Kill scheduled two Division II teams, two teams from the Ohio Valley Conference - a league that is clearly inferior to SIU's Gateway Football Conference - and one Division I-A team.

Kill can't go wrong with that kind of schedule following a 1-10 year. He can't help at least tripling or quadrupling his win total. If he keeps lowering the competitive bar, he'll be able to retire as a legendary coach.

Maybe SIU should join the ranks of Division II so it can rack up even more meaningless W's and maybe even win a national championship.

It worked in 1983, when SIU won a national championship in its first year in Division I-AA, mostly by using I-A caliber players against I-AA teams.

Year after year, the benefits of weak competition are exhibited in the football programs of Florida State and Miami.

Both are frequently mentioned as national title hopefuls. They play in two of the weakest football conferences in Division I-A and dominate them while SEC and Big Ten teams are knocked out of title contention when they lose a conference game to one of their conference's real college football teams from real football schools.

Both of the aforementioned Florida teams play in conferences known for their basketball prowess and football impotence.

At least Division I-AA football championship game berths aren't awarded to teams because of their weak schedules.

SIU and its athletic administrators should accept the fact that it's a basketball school and stop trying to sell fans on its version of fool's gold.

When the Athletic Department marketing team tries to encourage fans to attend to a football game with its promotions, it's almost akin to a slick-haired smooth-talker on a late-night infomercial trying to sell you some useless piece of junk, knowing that it will probably fall apart after you've spent your money on it.

Not only is SIU a basketball school, but it is also located in a basketball-friendly region.

The Salukis should focus their limited resources on basketball, a sport where it is not out of the realm of possibility to consistently win. At least basketball can draw fans without the promise of an alcoholic parking lot party where hundreds of people are there with no intention of watching the football game.

This team will win a few games early and then, as always when faced with real competition in the Gateway, stumble to a losing record while disappointing fans another year.

You won't find this sportswriter jumping on the proverbial bandwagon until we can consistently beat real teams.

And, no, SEMO doesn't count. Despite their trouncing of the Salukis last season, the Indians haven't even fielded a winning team since 1994 and struggled to beat a Division II opponent known as the Boll Weevils at home last weekend.

After spending most of a lifetime watching the Bad News Salukis find a way to lose nearly every game and coach after coach purported to be the one who will turn it around, one win over a clearly inferior opponent that had to be bribed to play us isn't enough to inspire football fandom in me

It shouldn't be enough for you either.

Ethan is a senior in journalism. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.