The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

by Jeff Benedict

  The final score read 41–14. Michigan’s electrifying quarterback, Denard Robinson, was bottled up all night. Michigan’s offensive coordinator, Al Borges, seemed content to let him throw from the protection of the pocket, insulating, perhaps, his most important offensive asset for the long term. Afterward, Hoke took the long view. He saw the game as a “measuring stick” of how far his team still had to go to recruit the athletes needed to play with the big dogs.

  But that was a problem for another day. On this night it was almost 11:00 central time when Michigan players began to filter out of the locker room and make their way to the team bus. They had been on the road for nearly thirty-six hours, at least five more to go before they would return to Ann Arbor around 5:00 a.m.

  Brandon rode by in the passenger seat of a golf cart, his face set in stone. The stud left tackle Taylor Lewan limped by on an injured left knee. As the security line stretched out, Robinson and Hoke arrived after fulfilling their media obligations. During the game Robinson had gone down hard—twice: the first time following a helmet-to-helmet hit; the second time as the result of a desperate lunge for a failed first down that forced the star QB off the field. As he was helped to the locker room, thousands of Michigan fans stood as one and watched his every step.

  But now there was Robinson, taking a bite out of a postgame sandwich while waiting to get on the bus—no worse, it appeared, for wear. His status was such he could have easily cut to the front and crashed out on the bus. Lord knows he deserved it. Instead, he waited like a walk-on, much like his head coach, who, in genuine sincerity, had found a spot in the middle of the line next to his wife: no special privileges; just a quiet, unmistakable message delivered by a coach living a life he loved.

  Mike Vollmar looked over the scene. He had been the director of football operations for Saban at both Michigan State and Alabama before joining Hoke at Michigan. He knew more than a thing or two about big-time football. One of the biggest things, he said, was there was little or no time to wallow in the losses. Or savor the wins.

  “Sunday is Sunday; Monday is Monday,” said Vollmar. “You move on.”

  For Michigan that meant by the time the players arrived at Schembechler Hall early Sunday afternoon for treatment, weight lifting and meetings, BEAT AF signs had already been taped to the front door. Forget Alabama. Done and done. This week it was all about beating Air Force.

  And beat the Falcons they did before more than 112,000 fans in the team’s home opener. In doing so, Robinson broke out in vintage “Shoelace” style, amassing an incredible 426 yards in total offense (208 passing, 218 rushing), including 79-yard and 58-yard touchdown runs, the last one minus one of his famous untied shoes. It marked the fourth time in his career Robinson had passed the 200-yard mark in both categories in the same game, the most by any player in FBS history.

  Still, the Falcons’ unique triple-option attack gave Michigan fits, gashing its defense for 290 rushing yards and keeping the game on the line until the final two minutes, when a fourth-and-sixteen pass by Air Force came up empty, sealing a 31–25 win for the Wolverines. Brandon breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  His day had officially begun about nine hours earlier, when he arrived at the stadium. “Good morning, are we ready to go?” he greeted some security personnel. Then he hopped into a golf cart and began his early-morning tour, checking everything from the cleanliness of the concession stands to the freshness of the cookies—“Hi, I’m with quality control”—to the color of the M&M’s in the visiting athletic director’s suite.

  To his critics—and there was more than a chorus of those—the relentless nature of his search for fresh revenue—to build the brand—was hard to take. This was college fergodsakes, not the NBA. It seemed unseemly at times, charging for corporate events at the Big House, for school tours, the $6,000 wedding packages, the rising cost of season tickets and preferred-seat licenses.

  Brandon didn’t spend much time worrying about the naysayers. It was the cost of staying ahead, of “wow,” the price mega-programs must pay for a seat at the table with Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State in the all-in, high-stakes game called college football.

  Denard Robinson knew in the end that his senior season would not be judged by wins over Air Force or the mauling of UMass the following week. The true test of the quarterback’s value to the team—to the athletic department—would come in the biggest games. Robinson all but disappeared against Alabama. The fourth game offered a chance at redemption—a Saturday night matchup in South Bend against Notre Dame.

  But when the final gun sounded, Robinson’s million-dollar smile was nowhere to be found. Instead, NBC cameras focused on a disconsolate twenty-two-year-old kid. The 13–6 loss would go down as the worst game of Robinson’s career: four interceptions on four consecutive passes in the first half; a fumble on the Irish eight-yard line in the opening drive of the second; an all-around horror show of overthrown passes, missed reads and ill-timed mistakes. At the postgame presser Robinson issued an all-out apology to Michigan fans around the world.

  “It won’t happen no more,” he said. “I’m going to be accountable for the rest of the season. I don’t want to feel like this no more. In the 22 years I’ve been living, this is the most disappointed I’ve ever been in myself.”

  Like an inverted pyramid, the poker-game pressure to win in the mega-programs funneled down from athletic directors to coaches to players. No single athlete felt more of that pressure than Robinson. If Michigan football was the “front porch” of the university—and it was hard to argue otherwise—Hoke and Robinson were its welcoming committee.

  With his shoulder-length dreads and infectious smile, Robinson was far and away the most recognizable—and popular—student on campus. He had met President Obama and LeBron James. His No. 16 game jersey was flying off the shelves and onto the backs of thousands of fans. A local comedian produced a hilarious music video titled “I Love You, Denard.” Robinson had made a regional cover of Sports Illustrated’s College Football Preview issue as a leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy.

  In fact, one could make the argument Robinson was far and away the MVP of college football, as in most valuable player to any single program in terms of dollars and cents. AJ McCarron at Alabama? Matt Barkley at USC? No way. Johnny Manziel? Not before the Alabama game. No, no school lived and died on the arm—and legs—of a single player more than Michigan did with Robinson.

  The pressure was enormous. Robinson didn’t like to talk about it, but he felt it. And the pressure was compounded by the unreal hours players were putting in. As much as the NCAA tried to monitor the hours spent on college football, there was no off-season, just a never-ending blur of conditioning and weight room workouts, meetings, physical therapy and training room treatment, practice, practice and more practice followed by film study and more practice, and don’t forget travel and games.

  “Oh yeah, it’s a full-time job,” said Robinson. “It’s a grind. And it’s a grind because you have to do this. Because those games you are going to face, it’s going to take a toll on you.”

  Eventually, it did. After the dispiriting loss at Notre Dame, Michigan ran off three straight wins to up its record to 5-2, putting the Wolverines in the catbird seat for the Big Ten title and a trip to the Rose Bowl. Then, on the road at Nebraska, Robinson went down with a serious nerve injury to his right elbow. He never fully recovered. And as it turned out, despite Hoke’s valiant effort, neither did his Wolverines. Partly due to his injury and partly due to the fact he was not perceived as a pure NFL quarterback, Robinson’s draft position—at wide receiver—was projected no higher than third round and as low as sixth. (He would go in the fifth round to Jacksonville as a wide receiver.)

  Michigan’s final 2012 record turned out to be a disappointing 8-5, including a 33–28 loss to South Carolina in the final seconds of the Outback Bowl.

  The Brand, however, had become virtually impossible to beat.

  A pretty awesome asset

 
When it comes to the cathedral of college football, seasoned travelers speak of pilgrimages to South Bend or Happy Valley when Father Joe held sway over his congregation. But when it comes to big money, there is just one church, one road leading in a single direction. To Austin and the University of Texas.

  The UT football program is the mother ship of money, generating $103.8 million in revenue during the 2011–12 football season—nearly $20 million more than No. 2 Michigan. Even more impressive, it produced a reported $78 million in profit. Not $78 million in revenue—$78 million in profit.

  To behold the nature of the machine at work, take a walk around Darrell K. Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium on game day or, better yet, on a quiet Sunday morning after a game. But give yourself some time. It takes a good half hour to circumnavigate the stadium alone, all 100,000 seats of it. The stone columns resembling hundred-year-old oaks only add to a percussive sense of size and strength.

  Just inside an east-end entrance stands a statue of Royal, the certifiable Texas legend who died on November 7, 2012, at the age of eighty-eight. During his twenty years as head coach in Austin (1957–76) he won 167 games, three national championships (1963, 1969, 1970) and eleven Southwest Conference titles. The Sunday morning after his death, orange and red roses lay fading at the feet of his statue, the lone sound a state flag flapping in the breeze, clanging against a pole. A video board the size of a strip mall filled one end of the stadium. The day before, the Longhorns had honored Royal with, in part, moving videos on the giant screen. A white DKR logo was affixed to every player’s helmet, and the marching band spelled out ROYAL during its halftime performance. The real tribute came on Texas’s first offensive play—a razzle-dazzle pass out of Royal’s fabled wishbone formation, players and coaches pointing to the sky following the forty-seven-yard gain. It marked the beginning of a textbook 33–7 blowout of Iowa State.

  “A fitting way to honor him,” said head coach Mack Brown after the game.

  Fitting, too, that the statue right next to Royal’s is that of Joe Jamail, as in Joe Jamail Field. Often referred to as the King of Torts, Jamail is regarded as the wealthiest practicing attorney in the country. His contingency fee alone for helping Pennzoil win a lawsuit against Texaco was reportedly in excess of $500 million. A Texas graduate, Jamail is beloved for his character and commitment to UT: the law school pavilion and the swimming center are named after him or his family, and the school has two statues erected in his honor on campus. He also happened to be Brown’s personal attorney.

  Ringing the stadium’s upper level were the names and numbers of players who had carved their own legacy here—Bobby Layne 22, Tommy Nobis 60, Vince Young 10, Earl Campbell 20, Ricky Williams 34, Colt McCoy 12. Several were strung out below the Red McCombs Red Zone, courtesy of the San Antonio automotive magnate, co-founder of Clear Channel Communications and former owner of the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Vikings. All along the stadium were names of other donors, who funded the field house and football complex, men with names like Tex and Doc, the loyalty and love for a football team running deep into their hearts. You need it, we build it. Like the time word got out Oklahoma might be sending some people to spy on practice and one donor was said to have ponied up $5 million on the spot to build an indoor facility.

  To be a football star here has long provided an open invitation to enjoy the occasional company of such men—and women. Such largesse.

  To be The Man here, well, that was something else entirely.

  Texas had been The Man’s final recruiting stop. Visits to two Big Ten schools had offered little more than what he had experienced in high school—standing around with a bunch of guys downing beers at somebody’s house.

  His first real taste of recruiting arrived on his official visit to Tennessee. It was there the unofficial SEC motto—“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’ ”—came into play. He had been flown into Knoxville on a private plane and ferried around town in a tricked-out van complete with flat-screen TVs playing continuous team highlights. A fellow blue-chip recruit that weekend wanted to keep anything and everything in sight—shoes, cleats, clothes, you name it. Tennessee officials had informed the future NFL All-Pro there was no need to worry; there would be a “big bag of things to take when you leave.” And, oh, don’t worry so much about going to class. If needed, they could take care of that as well.

  As much fun as Tennessee turned out to be, it was Texas that set the standard for making an eighteen-year-old boy feel as if he were walking on air. “There was no hard sell,” The Man remembered several years later. After the obligatory tour—only this time it was state-of-the-art facilities doing the talking—an assistant coach handed him a book. Inside was his personal rise to stardom mapped out in a four-year plan: play a bit as a freshman, start as a sophomore for a top ten team, Heisman Trophy candidate his third year with the team chasing a national title, then, win the Heisman his senior year while playing for a national championship. Sounded good to him.

  And that was just football. The wining and dining had a Four Seasons feel, which just happened to be the host hotel. Friday night featured a visit to Coach Brown’s house, where Mack worked his magic on the parents—“He could sell a Pinto to Donald Trump,” said The Man—then dinner in a private room at the city’s top restaurant. That’s where he first met a few of the Angels, their female weekend hostesses, all smiles and creamy charm, the sexual tease heightened as they ditched the restaurant and the parents and headed to a Sixth Street bar. Forget the fact he was well underage at the time. He walked right in, no questions asked. Three-quarters of the team was already partying inside.

  “That left a lasting impression,” said The Man.

  The energy of the place, he remembered, was off the hook: an intoxicating mix of alcohol, house music and hard-bodied girls, the sound system cutting out every half hour so the crowd could belt out—what else?—the Texas fight song.

  His Angel that night was an African-American stunner. They didn’t sleep together, but the message was sent, loud and clear: commit and there will be plenty of opportunities. Sure enough, he later learned firsthand, several of the Angels were sleeping with stars on the team.

  Ah, sex, UT-style. After a huge showing in the spring game before his sophomore season, the girls came on to him in waves. “It would almost be you could pick the one you wanted to take home,” he recalled. Some nights he simply doubled his pleasure—taking two back to his apartment.

  By his junior year The Man was making national headlines, rolling up big numbers on the field and killing it in the campus haunts on Sixth. So he started to seek other action. He took to hitting the more “adult” clubs in Austin. The women, many in their thirties, came on to him like the young ones—only more aggressive and less interested in small talk, more sophisticated and experienced. Plus, they had money.

  Then things got really interesting. A teammate came home from one of the local strip clubs and handed him a phone number. The Man called the number. A stripper answered. They talked. She invited him to her upscale town house. He went on a weeknight. She answered the door wearing nothing but a robe. Moments later it was on the floor. She was in her twenties with dirty-blond hair, a doll-like face and a Playboy body.

  “So do you want to fuck me now?” she whispered.

  For the rest of his junior year The Man returned to her home regularly for sex with a woman far more sophisticated than any he met on the UT campus. She had more bling, too. She drove a fancy sports car, had plenty of cash and had a line to high-grade marijuana. She shared all of her toys with The Man.

  “All through college it never ended,” he said. “She was as cool as a girl could be. Pimped me out. Whatever I wanted—cash, a hundred here and there—she gave it to me. She let me drive her car whenever I wanted. If I wanted to smoke pot, she had that, too. Thinking back now, she was a pretty awesome asset.”

  These were the perks of being The Big Man on Campus—days focused on football, nights given to partyin
g and sex.

  Don King—no, not the boxing promoter—has been the king of the Austin strip club scene for thirty-five years. The Yellow Rose, Austin’s first upscale “cabaret,” was under his watchful eye for more than thirty years. On a Saturday afternoon in the fall of 2012, King was kicking back on the patio of a local sports bar, working on a perfectly executed afternoon buzz. Two of his best strip-club-owning buddies happened to be in town and were along for the ride. Over time what started out as a few icy drafts for King progressed to a carefully calibrated series of chilled vodka shots, fueling a natural, often hysterical, storytelling talent.

  As he talked, King waved a cigar around with his right hand. His long gray-white hair was in a ponytail, a diamond stud in his left ear, a gold chain hanging from his neck. He wore jeans, flip-flops and an autographed Earl Campbell jersey. His car was just across the way—a burnt-orange Nissan 350Z complete with detachable steer horns built into the hood and an “Eyes of Texas” car horn that could be heard three blocks away.

  “These kids would walk in gaga-eyed,” King said of the Rose. “They’re in one of the most famous titty bars in the world, and they’re realizing if they go to Texas to play for UT, and we go into this place, we eat and drink for free and sit around VIP for free for the next four fucking years.”

  The Rose is still around today, 6500 block of Lamar, far from the prying eyes and maddening crowds of the downtown social scene. Low-slung, it sits between a liquor store and a collision repair shop, across the street from a tattoo joint. The decor leans toward rough cedar walls and maroon couches and booths. Most important, it has two corner VIP areas that became the home away from home for many a UT player.

  “The players used to call it the office. They were going to the office,” said King.

  He started out in bars, working his way up to Austin’s big live music scene and a club called Crazy Bob’s, which night after night lived up to its name. “Three dollars at the door, five hours of happy hour, three for one, three full-sized drinks for the price of one. Two-dollar pitchers of beer. Three-dollar margaritas,” recalled King. “It was crazy.”