This weekend brings another installment of the college
football playoffs. Four good teams,
selected by a committee, will play their 14th games of the year with
the winners earning spots in a final championship event.
There is so much wrong with this process. Of course, there is so much wrong in the
world that needs attention more than football.
However, I don’t know how to fix war, famine, disease or Kanye, but I do
have a fix for college football.
Here is a partial list of what’s wrong with the current
playoff system:
·
A four
team field is too small. There are
almost always worthy teams left out.
This year Ohio State did not even win its own division, Penn State
did. Yet Ohio State is playing for the
national crown. As March Madness has proven, more teams in the field
legitimizes a championship and creates a lot more interest.
·
Smaller
conferences and schools have no chance. Think
over the past few seasons. Wouldn’t you
have loved to see Boise State, or TCU, or Eastern Carolina, or even Navy get
their shots? In the current system, the non-power conference schools need not
apply.
·
It forces
too many teams to play too many games. All
teams play 12 games. Divisional winners
play 13. Bowl invitees play
another. The ultimate championship
contenders play two more. More games
means more injuries, and more concussive brain injuries.
·
And too
many meaningless games. To improve
their chances of getting to the postseason, the best teams schedule at least
two or three meaningless games. Who
besides the parents of the third string wants to watch Alabama play Western
Carolina? Sometimes conference
championships games are also devalued (see point number one).
·
Too much
time between games. Almost a month
passes between the end of the season and the beginning of the playoffs. Teams can be sluggish. Games often start off
sloppy.
·
It degrades
interest in most traditional bowl games.
Any bowl not linked to the playoffs is automatically
discounted. They’re sideshows--a little
diversion between Nick Saban press conferences.
So how do we fix this?
What’s the solution? Here is the
Bill Stiles Five-Point Plan, which I offer free of charge to college
presidents, athletic directors, league commissioners and fat cats at ESPN.
1.
Cut the regular season back to 10 games. Get the patsies and the lower division
schools off the schedule. You’ll make up
the money from points 2 through 5.
2.
Expand the playoff field to 16 teams. Like NCAA basketball, this will give a shot to
some smaller schools and rising programs. Keep the selection committee as a
necessary evil.
3.
Treat major conference championships like the
first round of the playoffs. Win and
you’re in. Lose, you’re out. If you can’t win your conference championship
game, you can’t play for the big enchilada.
If a conference does not have a championship game, the fate of their
teams is in the hands of the committee.
So is Notre Dame’s.
4.
Let existing bowls compete to host the first three
rounds of the playoffs. That’s 14 very
meaningful games played out over three weeks.
You don’t think the Liberty Bowl would love to have Alabama versus
Michigan? All the other bowls can keep
their holiday dates and pick from the dozens of good teams not in the field of
16.
5.
Share the resulting television and licensing
revenues between all D1 schools and conferences.
In this system, the two championship participants will still
play no more than 15 games. Most other
teams will play a more reasonable 11 or 12.
Oh, and here is one more proposal to save the major college game. Require all D1 schools to put 25% of combined
coaching salaries into a fund to be distributed to players as monthly stipends,
plus bonuses when they graduate. That’s
it.
Hey ESPN, call me.
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