As we’ve mentioned before, on this here blog, one of the best and most appealing things about sports is that they exist in a vacuum of absolutes; unlike so many other areas of life where the difference between right and wrong or winning and losing is muddled with gray areas filled with hundreds of voices screaming their various contrasting opinions. In the real world it is difficult to know sometimes what is right, or good, because there are usually other overwhelming factors that sway judgement, or as Palpatine said to Annakin, “Good… is a point of view.” In sports however, one need only look at the standings to find truth. In sports there are steadfast rules, endzones, and foul lines. Decisions are handled by impartial referees with no personal agendas (we hope) and finally and most importantly, there is a scoreboard. At the end of the game one simply has to look at that scoreboard to see who is the victor. No need for further conjecture (although ESPN would probably fight that notion to the death) no need to stay awake all night pondering “what if.” That is the truest beauty of sport. Action can succeed where literal expression falters. When the day is done there is a winner and a loser by way of absolute truth within its parameters, and all of the talk just fades away into the abyss. In sports “truth will out," it has to. Well… except for in College Football.
College Football might be the most popular of all sports in America but, as we all know, it also may be the most flawed. The problems are logistical. There are so many teams and conferences that it is impossible for most of them to be judged against each other on the field, therefore polls and computer ranking-programs have been instituted to decide where teams fit in the national standings. And the game is too brutal to implement a tournament, as every other college sport does, in order to crown a true champion. So major College Football directly violates our cherished sports maxim. Incredibly, most of the time, it cannot be decided on the field. In the sports world this is inconceivable. So we’ve got to do something about it... right?
As long as I can remember people have been complaining about this great contradiction, and have pleaded for an NCAA playoff system. People have argued for a best-12 to 16 team playoff where these teams would face each other in a head-to-head tournament to once-and-for-all decide who is king in each respective football year. On its face this seems logical. But expecting amateur athletes to face the dangers of an extra month of football just doesn’t seem realistic and NCAA purists fear that with this kind of a system the regular season would be stripped of all importance. But as with most things, the biggest issue at stake here is money. The Bowl games on New Years Day generate huge sums for University coffers and some think that the institutions would suffer greatly with a playoff system in place. And that is why, as always, my dear Underdogs, the road to salvation lies in between.
A top four team play-in to the National Championship game would keep the current Bowl system in place and, while definitely not a perfect solution, it would at least give Four teams a real shot to win the big prize. Arguing about 4th place is much less dramatic than arguing about 2nd. For the most part we can let the teams decide their fate on the field when it matters most, while keeping the purists happy, because with this system the regular season remains important.
But why stop there? A Four-team playoff is definitely a good start to managing the mess that is the College Football world, but there still is the problem of inconsistency and disparity between conferences. And it still doesn’t solve the age-old problem of: (grab your Advil bottle, folks) when a team goes undefeated, but doesn't play very many ranked opponents, what in the world do you do with them??? (Boise State! What’s up?)
Therefore the Underdogs have taken on the extremely difficult task of fixing College Football. Now, it may seem absurd at first, but in the hopes of finally alleviating as many of this sport’s problems as possible, please try to keep an open mind. And remember, this is a rough first draft!
The first thing we have to do is create conferences consistently giving due credence to geography while respecting historical rivalries as much as possible. We know this is Hallowed Ground, and people will be shocked and offended, but for the sake of the greater good… we are gonna give it a try!
The first thing we need to do is combine the ACC with the Big East, and that would bring us to 20 schools. Split it into North and South and we get this:
Atlantic Coast Conference
North
Boston College
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
Connecticut
Cincinnati
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Virginia Tech
Atlantic Coast Conference
South
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Duke
Louisville
Florida State
Miami
South Florida
Next we need to do away with the silly numbers of the Big 10 and Big 12 (sorry guys but the numbers don’t even make sense anymore) and create the MidWestern Conferences.
Also split into North and South. The North retains the Big 10’s History, the South, the Big 12’s History. Also filter in a few SEC teams to keep each conference at a nice round 10.
MidWestern Conference
North
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Iowa
Iowa State
Illinois
Northwestern
Penn State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
MidWestern Conference
South
Purdue
Missouri
Nebraska
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Texas Tech
Next we combine the WAC and the Mountain West into a Mountain Conference. With a North and South. Filter in some PAC-10 Schools to keep the numbers consistent.
Mountain Conference
North
Colorado
Colorado State
Utah
Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Wyoming
Utah State
Idaho
Boise State
Nevada
UNLV
Mountain Conference
South
South
New Mexico
TCU
North Texas
Louisiana Tech
Arizona
Arizona State
Arizona State
Kansas
Kansas State
Baylor
Texas A&M
Then finally the PAC-10 becomes the Pacific Coast Conference and the SEC pairs down to 10 teams.
Pacific Coast Conference
Oregon
Oregon State
USC
California
UCLA
Hawaii
Washington
Washington State
San Diego State
Stanford
Southeastern Conference
Arkansas
Tennessee
South Carolina
Alabama
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Georgia
Florida
LSU
Auburn
So now we’ve created Eight Ten-team conferences:
The Atlantic North (ANC)
The Atlantic South (ASC)
The Southeastern Conference (SEC)
The Midwestern North (MWNC)
The Midwestern South (MWSC)
The Mountain North (MNC)
The Mountain South (MSC)
The Pacific Coast (PCC)
Each team plays 6 games within their division and 6 out of conference games rotating through the other conferences systematically over years. And yes, these schedules could be more difficult so it would likely be that no team goes undefeated, but that would be more true to the competitive spirit right?
Each conference would play a Conference Championship game making a possible 13 games. And eventually each conference could expand to 12 schools each (Like y'know, if The Midwestern North wanted to let in Notre Dame for example :) that would make 96 teams in the country legitimately Bowl eligible. That’s not so bad huh?
So one year lets say, hypothetically, the conference champs are as follows: (Record and National Rank to the right.)
Atlantic North - Virginia Tech (11-2) (9)
Atlantic South - Florida State (10-3) (11)
Southeastern - Auburn (13-0) (1)
Midwestern North - Ohio State (11-2) (8)
Midwestern South - Nebraska (13-0) (2)
Mountain North - Boise State (13-0) (4)
Mountain South - TCU (13-0) (3)
Pacific Coast - Oregon (12-1) (5)
The top 4 teams play the play-in games for the National Championship in Bowl Games rotating between the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Orange Bowl in which case it would be:
Boise State (4) at Auburn (1) in the Rose or Sugar Bowl
TCU (3) at Nebraska (2) in the Orange or Fiesta Bowl
The next week the winners play for the Championship.
(Or if the playoff is expanded to Eight teams, the four undefeated teams are hosts in the first bowl games in an order determined by rankings.)
In that case the matchups look like this:
Florida State (11) at Auburn (1) in the Orange Bowl
Virginia Tech (9) at Nebraska (2) in the Sugar Bowl
Ohio State (8) at TCU (3) in the Fiesta Bowl
Oregon (5) at Boise State (4) in the Rose Bowl
The remaining teams then play a Four-team playoff over the next two weeks.
Realistically, of course, all of this change is a long shot to ever happen, but even if a little of it could eventually happen I think it could only enhance College Football. (Not hurt it as purists would have you think.) And with that we leave you… To think it over. I know it's a lot to digest and change can be scary. But we love this game right? We deserve this!
As complicated as this revolutionary change might be, it's got to be light-years ahead of what College Football is now. Perhaps one day logical heads will prevail and actually get something done to fix it. Ya think we might have something like this in fifteen years??? It's possible, right? Quick! Call your respective University Presidents!!! :)
All the best,
And Thanks for Reading!
Underdogs OUT!!!
the better movie quote might be Dumbledore saying the "choice that lies ahead might fall between what is right....and what is easy."
ReplyDeleteWhile in essence I do agree with you on the idea of fixing the BCS or playoff by conference realignment. I also agree goegraphy should play THE most major category in deciding how conferences and teams should be aligned. I have 3 concerns in your division though.
1. 10 years ago TCU and Biose St. wouldve never been considered real contenders for anything and wouldnt be considered. Most of us in the SEC would argue that if either of these school play a schedule you are propsing then they wouldnt be contenders. In your new alignment, there are still FBS teams left out. Is it your plan to demoted teams like Notre Dame, Arkansas State, Navy or UCF back to FCS because they wont fit in these conferences? I would argue that all these schools with a watered down FCS non-big conference schedule could be the next Biose St. Do you judge what teams belong at FCS based on success on the field or size of school? If its size of school population, UCF has to stay and Cincy has to go. So you are left with a very tough decision. Do you expand your current plan to encompass all 124 FBS teams OR do you cherry pick who can stay or who can go? If you cherry pick, what is your criteria to ensure fairness for those schools? How do stop schools like UCF and USF from gaming the system? Remembering a demotion to the FCS could be fatal to a school athletics program and attendance as a whole.
2. Geography is key and many rilvaries will adjust accordingly if geograhpy is true. But in many of conferences, the goegraphy you propse is not true among many big school and that would lead to its ultimate destruction. Example, I lived in Houston for 2 years, you cant put Texas and Indiana in the same confernce who are thousands of miles away and keep TAMU out. College Station is barely a 2 hour drive from Austin. The current conference system barely holds back the flood on this situation. Look at the SEC, LSU is closer to TAMU as any other SEC school. Arkansas and Oklahoma are only 2 hours. UGA and GT, Tennessee and N Carolina, Florida/FSU are an hour and a half, the list goes on and on just for the SEC. The only 100% true sec states that have no other ties are Alabama and Mississippi. Your conference and I argue your non conference 6 games must still account for geography. Therefore geography must be #1 and #2 or you risk alienating the fan base and diluting the game.
3. Finally and most importantly, I think that population and geography have to work hand in hand. My largest argument, especially in recruiting, over the years has been distance and polutation for college football programs. Sure major schools recruit nationally, some globally. But the core of the team is still local talent. So I put to you. If Lane Kiffin got in his wifes ferrari this morning, how many different national contending programs could he visit in a 24 hr peroid? 1? 2?.... Now how about Urban Meyer or Nick Saban? 5? 6? You now live in LA, so you can tell there is many people and real football talent in SoCal. How many other state universities consider Florida as part of its backyard? I would argue up to 20 outside of the state. What about California? Maybe Arizona and Oregon. Those major school proximities per population in the east versus the west must be taken into account.
In conclusion, your idea and methodology maybe the best course of action. However you leave many wealthy and powerful schools in the wake on your path to the college football utopia. Many of these schools will not be run over so easily and will have legitimate arguments to be there. These arguments will be the same that Biose St and TCU have now. Who is to say how your plan better if you are burning good teams cause they are small or big teams cause they stink right now? Good maybe a point of view, but the real argument is about what is right....and what is easy. Right now....the point of view of that the current system is good is what is easy.