1 post tagged “college football”

Fourth in the series, here are my thoughts on fixing NCAA Football:

1. Start a 4 team playoff for the National Championship
The arguments for keeping the current Bowl Championship Series as is are bogus.  You could keep the bowl system for teams that don't qualify for the National Championship, but the four best teams should play in a playoff. Use a Selection Committee similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament to pick 4 teams based on national ranking and strength of schedule.  It won't be perfect, but you can expand the field as this becomes more popular.  In most recent history, there are rarely more than 4 teams that have a legitimate claim on the National Championship.  Look at last year: Before the bowl selection, the four highest ranked teams were Ohio State, Oklahoma, LSU and Georgia.  You could argue that USC was hot at the end of the season, but leave that up to the Selection Committee to decide if they should go or not.  Take the four teams, pair them up and you get Ohio State vs. Georgia and Oklahoma vs. LSU.  More than likely, you would end up with Georgia vs. LSU for the Championship.  A decent game, but they both belong to the SEC, so it might be boring for a national audience.  But suppose the Selection Committee picked USC instead of Oklahoma.  Then you end up with potentially the four best teams regardless of ranking.

2. Eliminate Conference Championships
This is a cheap, moneymaking ploy by the super-conferences.  This should have no bearing on the National Championship, and these wins/losses should not count.

3. Create a points system to measure wins
Since teams play different strengths of schedule, you need a way to measure each win.  You need to force teams to play Division 1A teams.  Penalize teams that schedule weak teams to pad their record. Reward teams that play a tough non-conference schedule.  The points you acquire can go into consideration for the ranking.  One point for the win, one point for a road win, one point for a win over a ranked opponent and one point for a Division 1A team.  Before rankings begin (see #4 below), consider only teams that were ranked last year as "ranked."  Let's say two teams go 3-0 in non-conference games.  The most points they could acquire is 12.  If you aspire to be a National Championship team, you better have a tough schedule all year long.  You shouldn't count on your ranking to come from playing in a tough conference only.

4. Start ranking teams when the Conference schedule begins
It's hard to gauge a team's strengths after one game.  If you start ranking teams after three or so games, you have a better idea how good the teams are.  Use the point system above (#3) to compare teams.

5. Start the Bowl season earlier
If your team was not selected for the National Championship playoffs, start the bowls two weeks after the end of the season and ensure that they finish before playing the National Championship game.  That should give anyone who needs to travel enough time to book plane tickets and make hotel reservations.

6. Eliminate the field goal
The field goal is antiquated. The field goal kick is not very exciting. In most cases, it's automatic.  By eliminating the field goal kick, this reduces football to offense and defense, which is just what the fans want. One potentially positive side effect is that teams may opt to go for it more in the red zone. Since they won't settle for a field goal, they can be more aggressive and go on fourth down more often.

7. Change the extra point
Since I'm making the field goal kicker unemployed, you can speed up the game by making the touchdown worth 7 points, and allow the 1 point extra point from the 2 yard line, as before.

College football is very entertaining, but the biggest changes needed are more structural than the game itself (I still hate the field goal). Having a real championship will give college football more legitimacy.