So You Want a Better College Football System?

There is a lot of constant complaining about the college football system and I’ve seen my own share of ridiculous suggestions for fixing. Such tradition-mauling ideas as converting the Bowl Games into playoff games, eliminating them all together, to keeping the ridiculous system we have now.

No one has thought to keep both the bowl games and have a playoff before them. What is so wrong with that? That way traditions are kept alive and every team gets a chance to feel like the winner of something, which is what is so great about the bowl game tradition.

I feel there has been too much belly-aching over the fairness of this system. It’s actually worked fairly well. In 2008, I definitely felt that Oklahoma deserved to go due to the fact it simply outplayed Texas by a lot down the stretch and was playing much better by the end of the year than it was at the beginning of the year when it lost to Texas.

The only real gripe I’ve had the past few years actually was that 2007 should have been an LSU vs. USC fight which would have been much more interesting than the Ohio State match-up. That was one match-up where most people, at least to me, seemed to concede that USC was better than Ohio State.

But major changes have to be made first, mainly consolidation of weak conferences.

The first two major consolidations would have to be the merger of the Sun Belt and the Conference-USA, two little collections of South programs,. In addition, I would suggest that several southern WAC programs, like LA Tech, relocate to said conference as well.

Then I would also merge the Mountain West and the rest of the WAC, (though I’d just say that BSU might want to join the Pac-10 if it really wants to show its for real as a week in and week out national program).

I’m hardly done merging, however. I would merge the Big East and the ACC into one, large, unified Coastal Conference with more legitimacy. Though I would shift Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville into the Big Ten, Notre Dame also needs to just enter the Big Ten too.

I’m unsure what to do with the MAC though. The best idea I feel would be to merge it in with the Sun Belt and C-USA as well and structure it to where it’s a large Northern Division versus a large Southern Division.

Of course, it would be flawed to give these weak, under-manned conferences automatic playoff positions for their champions. I’d first make them play a wild card game, so to speak, with the new Mountain West Conference and then give that winner a seed in the playoffs.

I would start the college season earlier just so that the playoffs could be done and the bowl games can still be played with the BCS National Championship Game being the header in mid to late December around vacation and Christmastime.  

I hope this is the sort of positioning and system moved to in the next few years, because any thing else,simply would not cut it. Abandoning the traditions of the bowl games, which are incredibly fun to watch and make for a lot of good football, would be a sports tragedy. While not creating a more straight-forward playoff system, would also be unfair.