Dealin' With Doherty: Iron Chef Edition

I am not what you would call a "foodie."

"Simpleton" may be a better choice. "Vanilla" is certainly an apt description, in more ways than one.

I am a notoriously picky eater and am one who doesn't like to stray from the box. I like the box. It's comfortable in there.

My roommate often likes to pick what I'm going to have at a restaurant because I am rather predictable. I'm also pretty plain when it comes to food. For instance, I love vanilla ice cream... but just vanilla. No chocolate syrup or other toppings. Just vanilla. I get a cup of plain vanilla at Cold Stone, and they look at me like I'm an escaped mental patient.

The reason I bring this up is because last night my roommate and his girlfriend were watching the Food Network. They caught the tail end of Worst Cooks in America and then the subsequent episode of Iron Chef America. I had never seen either show before, so it was an interesting experience.

Both my roommate and his better half are more accepting and daring when it comes to food. They both cook, and they like to try new things. Basically, they're the Anti-me.

My roommate proposed this idea: for his birthday, he wants his girlfriend and the wife of one of our friends to engage in an Iron Chef-style competition. He, along with our friend, would be the judges as well as one other fellow.

Me.

See, this is the flaw in his plan, one his girlfriend so gleefully pointed out. I'd be the worst judge ever, mainly because I wouldn't eat anything they would actually make.

High-end food is lost on me. My dinner that night was a burrito. I cooked some ground turkey that was roughly two weeks past the "use or freeze by" date--side note, apparently turkey that has been refrigerated that long is still good because I'm not dead yet--put it in a store-bought tortilla, added some lettuce and Kraft shredded cheese, and topped it off with Cholula. That's about as gourmet as I get.

In Iron Chef America, the competing chefs are given one ingredient that they must use in every course. If I were the judge for this competition, that ingredient would have to be vanilla because I don't have anything with my ice cream for dessert. My roommate's girlfriend just shook her head in shame for me when she realized that.

As the show went on, we starting talking about what it would be like if I were on Iron Chef. It would be hilariously disastrous.

For one, the chefs on that show get 60 minutes to create like five courses. They're racing the clock at the end, scrambling madly to get everything ready before the clock strikes double-zeroes.

Me? I wouldn't need the entire hour, not by a long shot. I'd be done in like 15 minutes and would just spend the next 45 sitting in a chair... probably eating what I just made.

The chefs make these creative, exotic dishes--okay maybe they're not all THAT exotic, but you're talking to a guy who goes to Cold Stone and just gets vanilla. They're exotic to me. Last night, they had to use sausage as their main ingredient. You know what I would have made? A sausage pizza and sausage sandwiches.

Another reason why I would fail spectacularly at this show: plating. It's one of the three categories chefs are judged upon. I have no idea what it means.

I said, "What in the world is plating?" and my roommate and his girlfriend looked at me with an odd mix of pity and bewilderment strewn across their faces. They explained that it was how the food was arranged on the plate to make it look aesthetically pleasing. I asked why that was important and received shaken heads and "Oh dear lord." I bring out religion in people, apparently.

See, that doesn't matter to me because I segregate my food. I'm a food racist, as a girl I once knew so eloquently put it. She called me that because of my love of vanilla and lack of fondness for chocolate. When I admitted that I like the filling of Oreos but am not a fan of the chocolate cookie part, that's when she labeled me a food racist.

The point is that I don't mix my food. I generally eat things one at a time. I'll have all the vegetables before going on to the spaghetti. If I have mac'n'cheese with a hamburger, I'm finishing the burger before digging into the mac'n'cheese.

I'm weird, I know.

Anyway, just the thought of what I would do if I were ever on Iron Chef should be horrifying to many of you who like fine food and, well, culture, but at any rate, it would be hilarious... and probably sad. Hilariously sad.  

What Could Have Been...

Last week, the Mountain West and Conference USA announced that they will form a new conference starting in 2013. The new conference would have at least 16 schools with the possibility of expanding to 18-24 and would be split into regional divisions. The new league would span from coast-to-coast and have members in five time zones. Perhaps the most interesting piece of information regarding the new conference is that not only would there be a conference championship game in football, but semifinals as well. That would be the first type of playoff of any kind at the Division I-level in college football.

As of right now, the schools forming the conference are Air Force, Colorado State, UNLV, New Mexico, and Wyoming from the Mountain West along with UAB, East Carolina, Marshall, Rice, Southern Miss, UTEP, Tulane, and Tulsa from Conference USA. Fresno State, Nevada, and Hawai’i are joining the Mountain West this coming year as well.

UNLV President Neal Smatresk said, “This is an exciting development that will stabilize the current conferences and create the first truly national conference with members in five time zones and television viewership from coast to coast. We are moving our plans forward rapidly and expect to complete our conversations in the near future. Look for further announcements soon as we work together on this exciting new venture.”

School and conference officials are, naturally, putting the best possible spin on this.

“This partnership brings together like-minded institutions to improve the integrity and stability of intercollegiate athletics,” Smatresk said.

Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowksy said, “It is apparent that this association has great potential and there are leaders within the group that are committed to maximizing it.”

Tulane President Scott Cowen said, “We think this new conference will draw considerable interest from the networks.” Both the Mountain West and Conference USA have television contracts that run through 2015-16, and there is hope that the new conference will receive a new television deal.

Many college football fans and pundits have scoffed or laughed at the news. The Mountain West has long coveted an automatic BCS berth, but many believe that this new conference isn’t worthy of one. Conference expansion has gutted the elite of both conferences. BCS busters Utah, TCU, and Boise State have deserted the Mountain West for the greener pastures of the Pac-12, Big 12, and Big East, respectively. Mountain West basketball power San Diego State is also leaving for the Big East, and Houston, SMU, Memphis, and Central Florida ditched Conference USA in favor of the Big East.

The national appeal has also been called into question. Sure, the new conference spans from coast-to-coast and has schools in every time zone, but none are in major markets or have huge national followings.

Travel is also a concern. Hawai’i is 4,864 miles away from East Carolina and 4,358 miles from UAB. That will be mitigated by organizing the new divisions along regional lines, meaning that the Warriors will only have to travel to play the Pirates and Blazers every few years. Still, in these tough economic times when money is tight, questions can be raised about the wisdom of incurring more travel costs across the country, especially since many of these universities are smaller in size and budget than their BCS counterparts.

Finally the sheer size of the conference has led some to question its viability. After all, the WAC tried to create a 16-team superconference back in the early ‘90s. Its problems led eight schools to break off and form their own conference. That conference was the Mountain West. What makes school and conference officials think this time will be any different?  

Make no mistake; this consolidation between the Mountain West and Conference USA was done solely for survival.

Conference realignment has a ripple effect. The impact on the major conferences draws most of the attention, but the effect is most keenly felt by the smaller conferences. The Mountain West has seen five members depart over the past two years. It was the top non-BCS conference in the nation with numerous top-10 finishes over the past few years. Now, it is a shell of its former self, its fans aching over what it could have been. In order to survive, it raided the WAC: first Boise State, then Nevada, Fresno State, and Hawai’i. Those four schools won every WAC championship in football from 2002-2010.

That left the WAC in limbo, as questions arose about whether the conference could even survive. It was down to just five members, and adding schools such as Seattle, Denver, UT-Arlington, UT-San Antonio, and Texas State isn’t exactly a strong recovery. Denver, Seattle, and UT-Arlington don’t have football teams while UTSA and Texas State are moving up to Division I football.

Utah State already turned down an invite to the Mountain West, but the Aggies are an obvious expansion candidate for the new conference. Louisiana Tech, the defending WAC champion in football, has long been rumored to covet a spot in Conference USA. The new conference is western-heavy, with only two schools located in the Eastern time zone. Adding Louisiana Tech would alleviate that. Those two schools are the two best remaining WAC schools in football, and losing them would be a huge blow to the conference, one that it likely would not recover from.

Conference USA is in better shape than the Mountain West, at least for football. Losing Houston--which was a game away from a BCS bowl last season—and Central Florida hurts, but Memphis has been absolutely dreadful while SMU has improved from atrocious to mediocre. Tulsa and East Carolina have enjoyed recent success, and Southern Miss knocked off Houston and won the conference last year.

Other leagues could be affected, too. The remnants of the WAC are the most likely candidates for expansion, but reports have indicated that schools in the Sun Belt, MAC, and A-10 are also on the list of possible targets.

For all of its many flaws, the worst thing about the BCS is how much it has changed the landscape. Automatic bids have created an unequal playing field that has left teams chasing after the almighty dollar. The Big 12 was nearly torn apart because of Texas’ power and the Longhorn Network. The Pac-12 expanded in order to get a championship game and a better television deal. Utah and Colorado bolted for the conference because they would receive more money. TCU originally departed for the Big East because of the greater revenue derived from the conference’s automatic bid to the BCS.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh dumped the Big East in favor of the ACC because of long-term stability. That caused TCU to back out and head to the Big 12—the one move in all of this that actually makes sense. West Virginia was desperate to leave the Big East for any conference that would take it, having been rumored to join the SEC and ACC before finally ending up in the Big 12. Louisville and Connecticut have made overtures to other conferences. Texas A&M wanted to get out of Texas’ shadow, so it left for the SEC. Missouri decided to join in on the fun and do what all the cool kids were doing, so it also left for the SEC.  

The Big East was on the brink of destruction, so it raided smaller conferences because it had the one thing they coveted: a BCS berth. The only reason Boise State is joining the Big East is because of that berth. The Broncos got tired of seeing lesser teams make BCS bowls while they were shipped off to second-tier games. This past season, the seventh-ranked Broncos played a 6-6 Arizona State team that had long given up on the season in the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas while four teams ranked lower played in BCS bowls. In 2010, the Broncos were left out while unranked and 8-4 UConn got shellacked by Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

The irony is that when the current BCS contract ends in two years, automatic bids may no longer exist. If that happens, what will these teams do? It doesn’t make any sense for Boise State and San Diego State to play in the Big East. If there is no guaranteed BCS berth, then do they stay in the conference?

It’s depressing to witness what has happened to college sports because of the BCS and money. The storied Texas-Texas A&M rivalry may not continue. Kansas-Missouri, one of the most bitter and heated rivalries in college sports, is finished, at least for the foreseeable future. Colorado fans eagerly awaited the annual Nebraska game the day after Thanksgiving. TCU and Boise State could have had one of the best matchups in all of college football. Those two teams have played each other for three straight years, and each game was decided by a touchdown or less. Utah and TCU played with a BCS berth on the line. Can you imagine what the Mountain West would have been like if Utah, TCU, BYU, San Diego State, and Boise State had all stayed? Now that would be a fun conference. Instead, we’re left to wonder.

Other sports are feeling the effects, too. The Mountain West is the best basketball conference out west. San Diego State made it to the Elite Eight last year. The Aztecs and UNLV are both in the top 15 this year, yet both are trailing New Mexico in the conference. Wyoming and Colorado State have pulled off upsets. Missouri is one of the best teams in the country this year and is having an unbelievable season, yet those thrilling matchups with Big 12 powers Kansas and Baylor will be a thing of the past.

It’s sad to see what has become of college athletics, even more so when you think about what could have been.