Too Much Football? That's What The NCAA Is Telling Us

Does the NCAA really expect us to believe that we're getting too much football, even more than we want?

If this sounds silly, that's because it is, and once again we have to question who is running the show and what is their motive.

While we have all figured out the NCAA's motive is to make as much money as they possibly can, I think it may be time for them to just come out and say it.

While the NCAA has made the argument for well over a decade that a playoff system would be too much football, their cry lately is that just the game itself is too much football.

How crazy is this? What's even crazier is the NCAA expects us to believe this and expects us to say this is what we want.

I think that maybe it's time we tell the NCAA that there's about as much chance of me saying that I'm getting too much college football as there is of me going down to the bakery and telling them they just put way too much cream in my cannoli or me calling AT&T and telling them it's way too easy for me to get a live person to help me.

Doesn't the NCAA realize that this what makes the game great?

In 2006, the NCAA stuck its hands in to try and "fix" the game, and the net result was an average of 13 fewer plays per game and five fewer points.

This year's biggies are:

• When a player goes out of bounds, the clock will start when the ball is spotted (except during the final 2 minutes of each half);  and
• There will be a 40-second play clock that will start when the previous play ends, as opposed to the traditional 25-second clock that started when the ball was spotted.

These changes are all to benefit the TV networks. While the NCAA often plays the "to preserve tradition" card when it's to their advantage, tradition seems to goes out the window when the TV networks grumble.

So if the NCAA is willing to change tradition in regard to making actual games shorter, at what point will they be willing to change tradition in regard to a playoff system?

Once again for Division 1, they use the "too much football" argument, which once again is silly, since every other level of college football has a playoff system that is much larger and longer than anything that has been proposed for Division 1.

The NCAA argues that the current bowl format rewards all teams that had successful seasons, I beg to differ. I would say that the facts point to the bowls rewarding mediocrity and encouraging teams to pad their records so they reach the minimum six wins.

While in an 11-game season, which was the norm until recently, six wins would mean that each bowl team had at a minimum a winning record against D-1 competition, this is no longer the case.

Six wins represents a .500 winning percentage or mediocrity. In fact at 34 bowl games and 68 bowl-eligible teams, it almost insures that there will be several bowl game losers who finish with a losing record overall.

While I don't consider any football too much football, I do prefer good football to bad football, and meaningful football to meaningless football.

Watching some of these lesser bowls sometimes I almost (note the word almost here) start to agree with my wife's reaction to the old "what are you watching?" question as I sheepishly answer her with "the New Orleans Bowl" or "the New Mexico Bowl."

I sure as heck would rather be watching two teams that have ducked each other for seasons battle it out on a neutral site to see who goes on in the National playoffs.

However, according to the NCAA, that is just a pipe dream because after all, it would be just way too much football.