College football is a lot of fun. Aside from the ridiculous notion that the main attraction (the players) aren't allowed to make any money at all while everyone else connected makes millions, few things match the passion and pageantry of college football. Putting aside the "we should pay players" arguments, I'd like to tackle two ways that we can make this great sport even better: fixing the College Football Playoff and realigning the conferences to make more sense from a geographic and traditional rivalry perspective.
College Football Playoff
If there's one thing in college football that screams to be improved, it's the College Football Playoff, the manner in which the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) selects the national champion. In every other level of NCAA competition (Division I FCS, Division II and Division III), there is a legitimate playoff system that features 16 teams in a tournament to determine the national champion. Why should the highest level of competition be any different? A handful of years ago, they moved to the current 4-team playoff format. While this was arguably an improvement over the old BCS days, it's still not good enough. The current format guarantees that at least 1 Power 5 conference champion doesn't even get the chance to play for the national championship. Also, limiting the field to only four teams guarantees that at least a few very worthy teams (often teams with only 1 loss) get left out of the mix.
Here's my idea to fix this problem:
1.) Expand the field to 8 teams: each Power 5 conference champion + 1 Group of 5 conference champion + 2 at-large bids. Conference championships should mean something.
2.) Eliminate the 12th regular season game from the schedule. All teams play 11 regular season games: 8 conference games and 3 non-conference games. Eliminate games against FCS teams. Only allow teams 1 bye week. Bowl eligibility remains 6 wins, though I'd much prefer eliminating some of the bowl games and making the cutoff 7 wins.
3.) Force Notre Dame to join a conference (see below).
Here's how it would work:
1.) Regular season begins the last weekend in August and runs through the 3rd weekend in November.
2.) Conference championship games would be played during the last weekend in November.
3.) First round CFP games are played the first weekend in December at on-campus sites. #1 seed hosts #8 seed, #2 seed hosts #7 seed and so on.
4.) 2nd round/national semifinals are played around New Year's via the existing bowl game structure as is currently the case. The two winners of those games then meet in the national championships game as is currently the case.
This plan removes the inequity of some teams playing 9 conference games while others only play 8. It also removes teams padding their schedules with wins against FCS teams. It provides more teams an opportunity to play for the national championship and provides more potential for upsets. Holding the first round games on-campus makes it easier to sell tickets, in that it removes the need for fans of the higher seeded team to travel 3 times to watch all of the playoff games. Finally, this structure still allows time off for finals.
There is ZERO reason why this system wouldn't work and it's unquestionably less controversial than the current system. By eliminating one regular season game, the additional round of playoffs isn't adding any additional wear and tear on the teams that advance. Instead of an "eye test" determining all 4 teams in the playoffs, 6 teams would be determined by virtue of winning their conferences, so only 2 teams are subject to the whims of the selection committee. The committee would maintain the ability to rank/seed the eight playoff participants.
Conference Realignment
Over the years, conferences have realigned several times which has resulted in anomalies like a Big 12 with 10 teams, a Big 10 with 14 teams and a team in Missouri (with is neither southern nor eastern) playing in the Southeast Conference. Along the way, in search for more revenue dollars, schools have crapped on historic, hundred year old rivalries that have robbed us of tremendous grudge matches like Texas-Texas A&M and Missouri-Kansas. It's also resulted in teams like West Virginia travelling thousands of miles for conference games. That shouldn't happen. We're going to fix it with a realignment plan that puts in-state and regional rivals in the same conferences and minimizes the travel needed for conference games.
Here are the changes we would make:
1.) Miami and Florida State move from the ACC to the SEC
2.) Georgia Tech and South Carolina swap conferences, with Georgia Tech joining the SEC (where it was a founding member and belonged for 32 years) and South Carolina joining the ACC (where it was a founding member and belonged for 18 years)
3.) Missouri, Texas A&M and Nebraska all move back to the Big 12
4.) Maryland moves back to the ACC (where it was a founding member and belonged for 61 years), as does West Virginia
5.) Notre Dame moves to the Big 10
6.) Rutgers gets removed from the Power 5 and goes back to the American or some other conference
7.) The Pac-12 adds BYU and Boise State and becomes the Pac-14
With those changes made, here are what the conferences would look like, with the new members of each conference in bold, and with a rationale for why each of the aforementioned moves makes sense.
SEC (14 teams)
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Miami, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Rationale: You now have all three main Florida universities in the same conference and both main universities from Georgia in the same conference. It truly is a conference contained within the southeastern quadrant of the country.
Big 12 (12 teams)
Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, TCU
Rationale: You restore the Texas-Texas A&M and Missouri-Kansas rivalries. You have Nebraska back in the same conference as Oklahoma. It makes sense geographically and from a historic point of view. Also, you have 12 teams in the Big 12. It reduces travel for Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M.
Big 10 (12 teams)
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin
Rationale: You lose Maryland, Nebraska and Rutgers but you pick up Notre Dame. Maryland and Rutgers have always like weird add-ons and the addition of Notre Dame more than offsets the loss of Nebraska, especially from a football and men's basketball standpoint. It condenses the conference's geographic footprint (and lessens travel schedule) and puts all three main schools from Indiana in the same conference. Notre Dame makes all the sense in the world from a geographic and academic standpoint that it's ridiculous that it has never happened before now. Rutgers has been a disaster of an addition to the conference from a competitive standpoint and this resolves that issue as well.
ACC (14 teams)
Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Louisville, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, West Virginia
Rationale: You put the two main universities in South Carolina in the same conference. You restore the "Backyard Brawl" between West Virginia and Pittsburgh and, with Louisville, Virginia and Virginia Tech nearby, you finally have West Virginia in a conference that makes geographic sense. While you still have a conference spanning from Massachusetts to South Carolina, you remove Georgia and Florida from the geographic mix, thus reducing travel to an extent. Considering that Florida State and Miami have only been in the ACC since the 1990s and 2000s, respectively, you're not losing decades-long rivalries or members.
Pac 14 (14 teams)
Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, BYU, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, Washington State
Rationale: You make the "Holy War" between Utah and BYU a conference game and add another top notch football program in Boise State. Adding a team in Idaho and another team in Utah helps Colorado from a travel perspective, giving them a couple of other games in the Mountain Time Zone.
Making these in-state rivalry games all conference games frees up teams to schedule other top flight non-conference games. I realize that Iowa and Iowa State are still in different conferences, as are Colorado and Colorado State. If you really wanted to remedy THAT, you could slide Iowa State to the Big 10 and leave Rutgers in, keeping the Big 10 at its current 14 teams and instead move Arkansas to the Big 12, restoring traditional rivalries with Texas and Texas A&M. The question then is who becomes the 14th team in the SEC. Thinking about that made my head hurt, so I left it as proposed above. As for Colorado, you could swap out Colorado State for Boise State in the Pac-14 if you wanted, though I think Boise State would be a more attractive option.
There you have my grand plan to improve college football by fixing the current broken playoff system and restoring traditional rivalries. What are your thoughts? Which changes to you agree with? Which other changes do you think more sense? I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.
As always, thanks for reading! Oh....yeah....SIC 'EM BEARS!
