College Football: No. 1 Thing Wrong with the Sport Isn't the BCS

People often ask me which I prefer; college football or professional football, to which I always choose the former. Then, they will engage in some argument that starts with “What!? No way!?”, and follows with them trying to come up with reasons of why the NFL is better.

They may say something along the lines of: "Pro football has better athletes,"—yeah, so what? It doesn’t imply the execution is any better.  Tony Romo and the Cowboys blew a 24 point lead yesterday—is that good football?  Was the Sunday night game between the Ravens and Jets well played?

People may argue against the gimmicky offenses  of college football, such as the option or pistol, or how games evolve into shoot-outs. To them I say, I don't understand why if someone can run the read option well, this is bad. 

Additionally, these people often ignore the fact that pro football has continuously implemented rules to help the offenses; cowboy collar, no touching after five yards, hitting someone shoulder to shoulder over the middle being interpreted as a personal foul, etc, etc.

Finally, my favorite argument is that: "there are too many teams in college football," which just implies you're too lazy to get involved. Even if people just wanted to watch the upper 80% of BCS conference teams, and the handful of non-BCS teams that are good year in, year out, this would be about 60 teams; less than double the amount of NFL teams, which isn't that astronomical.

Besides, the fact you're exposed to more teams is good. You should be able to watch middle of the road-to good teams such as Washington, Miss State, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, etc, whereas when was the last time you saw the Jacksonville Jaguars on TV when they weren’t playing your team and you had the basic cable plan?

*Quick side note. One of the reasons I think college football is less popular in this day and age, yet something no ever said to me, is the existence of fantasy football. I know college fantasy exists, but I have never met anyone who actually plays it (and I don't either). NFL does benefit from the fact that even though you may not watch the New Orleans Saints all year, you know about their revolving door at the RB position.

Eventually though, the argument that comes up again and again is regarding the BCS and the need for a playoff system.

I don’t want this to be another debate about whether there should be a playoff or not. Instead, I want to show how we've reached this point. 

Whichever side of the coin you fall on when it comes to playoffs, you can't argue against college football's regular-season importance. Every game is extremely important. Every game is a do-or-die. Teams cant afford to slip up the way the Patriots can lose to the Bills, and still rely on their strength in the playoffs to win the title.  This is one thing that people are arguing would be lost with a playoff.

The problem is that the idea of do or die isn’t as true as it once was.  Scheduling has become such an integral step to reaching the BCS title game or the other BCS Bowls, that teams have made a mockery of the season.

Now, a majority of teams schedule cupcakes so that they get a free win.  While I realize Appalachian State beat Michigan, and therefore there isn't a 0 percent chance of a massive underdog losing, this scheduling is the worst thing about college football. If we look closer, we realize it is also a more recent development, one that coincides with the new business landscape of the game.

We only have to look back twenty years, max, to see a vast difference in the college football landscape. In 1991, conferences were mere shadows of what they are today. Major powerhouses such as FSU, Penn State, Miami, Pitt and Texas either didn’t play in a conference, or played in a different one than they do today. 

In the early 1990s, before the BCS, the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance forced teams to join conferences or be left behind. Then, conference title games were added. What did this mean for everyone but the coaches and players?  Money.  What did it mean for the coaches and players?  Another tough, hard-fought game to get ready for.

Since the stakes were getting higher, and teams were now playing an additional conference title game, is it any wonder that teams started scheduling cupcake university? A deeper analysis may be needed, but it seems to have started with Spurrier and the Gators in the mid 1990s. A look at their 1996 title season, and we see they started with Southwest Louisiana and Georgia Southern. Not really the most formidable of opponents.

We also see that despite playing in the SEC title game and the Sugar Bowl, the Gators only played a total of 13 games. That is because it used to be uniform that teams played 11 'regular season' games, a possible title game (SEC was the first) and then a bowl. Now, with a 12th game, and a conference title game, the best teams are playing thirteen games.  Of course they're not going to want to play 13 straight tough opponents. Instead, they'll cut a $1,000,000 check for the Citadel to come and get destroyed in the Swamp.

In college basketball, coaches are applauded for scheduling tough teams. Mark Few's Gonzaga is somewhat credited with this idea. When his Gonzaga teams played a weak WCC schedule in the mid 00s, he went out of his way to schedule big name non-conference opponents in November and December. His thought process was this would toughen the team up and get them ready for March Madness.  He believed in the old adage of: "you're only as tough as who you play." It worked, for the most part, except for this. 

Coaches, ADs and Presidents cannot do this in football, because one slip up and you're done. You're better off not taking a risk, and instead play the Citadel and win.  Teams don't get bonus points for losing to a tough team.  Better they should play the worst teams and win (not to mention margin of victory was at one point a component of the BCS formula).

Before the BCS, conference title games, conference affiliations, etc, existed a simpler time. A time when teams scheduled each other with no fear, and it was awesome.  Every game really counted—true cut-throat tournament of football.

Look at ND's 1988 championship campaign. You cant possibly argue against them being the best team. No one ever complained about a lack of a playoff in 1988 because the proof was in the pudding. ND played No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 9 that year. They also played

their then annual rivalry with Penn State, and annual rivalry with MSU, Purdue and Stanford. They couldn't help that those teams weren't as good as they usually were. So while Drew Brees and Touchdown Tommy Vardell weren't suiting up for Purdue and Stanford, it wasn't as if ND was scheduling Tennessee-Chattanooga or Tennessee-Chatanooga (two different links, poor Mocs).

Look at 1990 Colorado even, who I strongly consider to be the worst team to win a title in my lifetime. They played seven conference games against the other Big 8 opponents. Their other five games were Stanford, at No.8 Tennessee, at No. 21 Illinois, No. 12 Washington and at No. 20 Texas (not in same conference back then). So you can't really fault them for their scheduling, although you can fault the refs for this, or this.

This, to me, is the worst thing about college football today.  People schedule cupcakes because they are afraid to lose and miss out on the BCS.  Before, games spoke for themselves, and without conference affiliations or having to play more and more games, they just scheduled who they wanted.  Then, we had a true cutthroat season.

What would happen if we turned to a playoff?  On one hand, I can see teams being more protective, and scheduling easy games so they can assure that they make the top eight (or however many teams there are in the playoff).  On the other, it could turn into college basketball, where teams could finally be free to schedule who they want, without fear of one loss dooming them.  My guess, however, and since we're not dealing with 68 teams like we do in basketball, is that teams will become more and more protective.

It is a shame, and to me, it is the worst thing about college football. Now, teams are scared to play each other. FSU doesn't want to play ND. Notre Dame—still independent, and still packing the schedule with traditional rivalries—has had other teams bow out and reappear over the years. They have maintained playing USC, Michigan, MSU and Purdue every year, but Penn State, FSU, BC and Stanford have come and gone throughout.

Pitt doesn't want to play Penn State. Arkansas doesn't want to play Texas. People called for a Iowa-Nebraska rivalry that never happened—but now will be since Nebraska joined the Big Ten.  The list goes on and on.

Games in 2011 such as Oregon vs. LSU and FSU-Oklahoma were heralded, and rightfully so.  But those types of games used to be commonplace in college football. Every single week someone was eliminated; there were no weeks where Mark May and Rece Davis would come on TV and coin the day "Survival Saturday" and show all the close calls of the top 5 teams. All this happened due to conference affiliation, extra games, the BCS and the cutthroat nature of college football.

It was the non-conference scheduling that led to amazing games such as Notre Dame-USC 2005, or Notre Dame-Miami 1988, Texas Ohio-State 2005,  etc.  The list goes on and on for a reason—because the non-conference games used to mean something. 

Maybe, just maybe, if we got past all this money stuff that caused the BCS and conference title games and realignments, we could get back to old fashioned football.  Playing the high powered teams wherever, whenever and having it mean something.  But we know that won't happen.  Until then, we'll have a schedule of cupcakes.  Without these problems in scheduling, we wouldn't need a playoff to determine the winner.  That's why the scheduling is the No. 1 problem in college football.