Let's begin with the obvious. If Virginia wins last Saturday, none of this matters. If a darn handoff doesn't get fumbled … if the refs don't call that bogus pass interference … if the defensive backs would just TURN AROUND and see the ball … if the coaches don't get so freaking cautious … AAARRGH. OK, I'm getting emotional again.

But if the Cavs beat the dang Hokies, we're all going to Atlanta, or New Orleans, or somewhere much closer and warmer than Boise.

A lot of this is just plain bad luck. In the one year that final exams are later than normal, wouldn't you know it that Virginia ends up on a collision course with the one bowl where there is a conflict.

If it was any other year, the Cavs would be through with finals around Dec. 18 or 19, and they would have no problem going to a Dec. 21 bowl. If it was any other bowl - the Gator, Peach, Sugar, Fiesta, Continental Tire, Independence, Las Vegas, Emerald, whatever - academics wouldn't be an issue. Only an unusually late exam schedule and an unusually early bowl (the Champs Sports is the second-earliest bowl, next to the Dec. 14 New Orleans Bowl) created this issue.

Also, if Clemson's players hadn't decided to go thug-wild on South Carolina, things might be different. Both schools ended up punishing their teams by banning a bowl trip. The Tigers would have given the ACC seven eligible teams for six bowl slots. In that case, Clemson probably would have gone to the Champs Sports and Georgia Tech would have been available to go to Boise. It's still not certain that the MPC Computers folks would have released Virginia, but the ACC could have put pressure on them to take the Yellow Jackets and let the 'Hoos go to a better bowl, like the Independence. That way the ACC could have fulfilled its contract to the bowl and still put Virginia in a game more worthy of its record and ranking.

There's not much Virginia could do about any of that, unless you think first-rate universities should make it a high priority to avoid academic conflicts with third-rate bowl games. There is also nothing UVa's administration could do about Clemson's situation. All of that goes under the heading of bad timing and bad luck.

You can curse bad luck, but you can't blame anyone for it.

What you can hold people responsible for is how they handle situations that arise. In that respect, posters have found no shortage of blame-worthy suspects - everyone from John Casteen to Craig Littlepage to John Swofford to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Casteen got the biggest board-lashing in the first few days after he announced that Virginia would not accept a bid from a bowl that fell in its Dec. 13-21 exam schedule. That came as a shock to Cavalier fans, who sought comfort from the Virginia Tech loss with the consolation prize of a trip to Disneyworld. Now Casteen was not only denying them that trip, he was dooming the team to an even lesser bowl. He was undermining the football program! He was spoiling the season! He was ruining recruiting! He had to go!

At first, I, too, thought Casteen had royally screwed up. Not with his decision to proactively turn down the Champs Sports Bowl, which was the right thing to do. (After all, student-athletes really shouldn't be practicing and playing football during finals, not at a university that has its priorities straight.) But with the timing of the announcement. Why did he wait until the last minute to mention this? Shouldn't he have known about the potential problem well in advance, and said something at the time? It was his announcement, so he was the most convenient target for outraged fans.

The more I think about it, though, the less blame I'd assign to Casteen. Why? Ask yourself this: Is it the job of a university president to worry about whether exams conflict with a bowl game? Should he have looked into this possibility himself? Or does he have more important things to deal with every day?

Really, it's the job of athletic department administrators to think about stuff like this. For them, it was an easy problem to anticipate. Virginia was picked to finish third in the ACC. Champs Sports is fourth in the ACC's bowl pecking order. Before the season, and at any time during the season, it seemed very possible (if not probable) that the Cavs would end up with an invitation to Orlando. At any time, Littlepage or others in the department could have noticed that the bowl fell on the last day of finals. Did they overlook that? Littlepage implied as much by saying that he was focusing on a top-three finish and wasn't thinking about any bowl below the Peach. But that's negligent. It's not his job to be optimistic; it's his job to plan for the best, the worst and every scenario in between. It's not asking much for the athletic department to examine the feasibility of each bowl with an ACC tie-in and determine before the season if there is any inherent conflict. That should be done in August.

Instead, according to Littlepage, department officials waited until the ACC raised the issue several weeks ago. Then they checked into it and figured out - hey, we can't go to Orlando! And after determining that, of course, they did the right thing and let everyone know immediately, right? Nope. They decided to keep quiet. Littlepage says he promptly informed Champs Sports officials and the ACC office. The ACC then asked Virginia to delay the announcement, but why? All I can guess is that everyone involved hoped the issue would go away. They crossed their fingers that things would unfold differently, that Virginia would beat the Hokies and no one would be the wiser.

But that was the wrong thing to do. Wrong for a lot of reasons, but it boils down to this: It was inconsiderate. It was inconsiderate of athletic department officials to mislead fans into thinking Orlando was an option when they knew it wasn't. The Champs Sports Bowl never should have been among the postseason possibilities listed on the order form distributed to season-ticket holders. Even if that form was mailed before a conflict was discovered, officials owed it to fans to tell them as soon as the bowl was ruled a no-go. After all, many fans (and media types) plan their holiday schedules around bowl trips. Going into the Virginia Tech game, I penciled in New Year's in Atlanta or pre-Christmas fun in Florida, depending on the result. I think a lot of fans did the same. So to get neither trip came as a shock to the fans and, apparently, to the players. That's disrespectful and shows no class.

It was also insulting to think fans should have been shielded from the truth. Had Virginia announced its decision concerning the Champs Sports Bowl two weeks ago, or two months ago, I think fans would have understood and respected it - and maybe even applauded UVa's academic integrity. If nothing else, they would have crossed Orlando off their list of possible holiday destinations, then rooted like heck (even more so) for the Cavs to win in Blacksburg. At least fans wouldn't have been taken by surprise. By waiting to announce the decision until after the game, Virginia officials compounded the pain of the loss with the frustration of an unexpected plunge down the bowl pecking order. That's the real reason emotions ran so high this week. Frankly, everyone was pissed.

And rightfully so, but that doesn't mean heads need to roll. It's clear that Virginia's officials badly mishandled the situation, and Littlepage, as the head of the athletic department, deserves his share of blame. He now admits that delaying the announcement was a mistake and that it should have been handled differently. He and Casteen both screwed up by not insisting on a prompt announcement. Whoever is responsible for raising a red flag when athletic competitions conflict with exams also screwed up. But this isn't Bowlgate. There is no criminal wrongdoing or corruption or scandal here. The decision to bypass the Orlando bowl was a good one. The public relations part of it was a disaster. That's bad, but it's not unforgivable or inexcusable. Firing Casteen or Littlepage over this would be a wild overreaction.

In a way, you can see why UVa's officials handled things the way they did. They thought it was unnecessary - and possibly damaging - to announce a decision about a scenario that seemed unlikely to transpire. So they decided not to make anything public until they had to. Let's hope in the future that they conduct themselves in a way more worthy of the public trust - by being open and transparent, by being up-front with fans and a little less secretive.

If they learn that lesson, some good might come of all this. We still might end up in Boise, but next time maybe we won't be quite so bitter.

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