How To Fix The World

I figured I might as well start out with what is most important…..

OK, so this one is admittedly for those of us who love football, the real football, not that thing that happens on Sundays with salaries, endzone celebrations, and an infinite number of fantasy leagues (does anyone else think fantasy teams takes some of the fun out of the game?  I certainly do).  No, I’m talking about college football.  I’m talking about the best regular season in all of sports, and probably the least significant championship game.  To fix the BCS system, we have to look at what is so great about college football and what isn’t so great.

The Good:

Without a doubt, the college football season is by far the most compelling regular season of any sport.  Why?  It has to be a combination of so many things.  First of all, it’s young men playing a game because they love to play it in front of 92,746 screaming fans in beautiful fall weather.  The game completely changes every year because of graduations and transfers so every school has a new hope each year that maybe this year is finally the year their team wins the big game.  Most importantly, the college football regular season is so exciting because every game counts; slip up just once and there goes your chance at a “national championship” (see USC, Alabama, Texas, etc.).  But even if your dream season comes crashing down, there’s always a chance next year.

The Bad:

Anyone who knows college football knows that the one thing ruining the sport is the Bowl Championship Series (BCS).  The system uses a combination of human-based polls and computer systems to determine who the two best teams in the land are and then they go play in a “championship game”.  As terrible as that system is, it isn’t even the worst part of it IMHO.  Currently there are 32 bowl games played every year.  32.  With 2 teams per bowl, that’s 64 teams, or over half of all of college football.  Should we really reward a team who won only half of their games?  Not to mention the contracts signed between a bowl and specific conferences.  These contracts have created some of the most useless, uninteresting matchups possible (see Sugar Bowl 2008, Sugar Bowl 2009, Orange Bowl 2009, etc).  Enough is enough.

The Ugly:

Having to choose between rooting for a Big 12 team with a powderpuff defense and who is known for running the score up on teams, or rooting for the scum of the Earth, Florida, whom I would rather root for Al-Qaeda on any given day than this team, in the “national championship” game.

The Solution:

Let’s start with the national title game.  Simply put, you have to keep the regular season as important as it already is.  The championship game, however, is so worthless that something has to change.  Contrary to popular belief, a playoff is not the answer.  Creating a full-blown playoff will subsequently make certain games irrelevant.  A team could lose a game or two without worrying about being knocked out of the big game because the top 8 or 16 or whatever number will go.  No, a playoff won’t due.  What we need is for every conference to have a championship game and then use a plus-one system.  This system means that the top four teams play each other (1 v 4 & 2 v 3), and the winner of those games goes to a real National Championship Game the following week.  That way you can avoid a team with a weaker schedule getting in the game and not punish someone with a more difficult schedule so harshly as the current system does.  Let’s take a look at the 2008 season for a perfect example.

The top 4 teams vying for the Title would be Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and Texas.  The other teams that could make an argument would be USC, Penn State, Utah, Texas Tech, and Boise State.  The following list is why each team’s argument is irrelevant:

USC - lost to Oregon State who ended up losing 4 games, one by 31 points and another time by 27

Penn State - Lost to Iowa who lost 4 games, all to unranked teams

Utah - Strength of schedule - 57th, hardest game - Michigan, who we all know was terrible this year

Texas Tech -Lost by 44 points to one of the teams in the top 4 (obviously not in the same league)

Boise State - Strength of schedule - 79th, hardest game - Oregon, the 2nd or 3rd best team in the worst major conference

The top 4 teams all lost only one game, two of them were to another team in this top 4 and the other two were to teams playing in top, non-BCS bowl games.  So with these 4 teams selected, 2 bowl games will be played the first Saturday in January and the championship game will be the subsequent Saturday.  This way we can easily decipher from the top four playing each other who is the best and keep the regular season as exciting and relevant as it already is (since the 5 teams i mentioned that got left out all had zero or 1 loss).

Now as for the other bowl games, forget these conference loyalty contracts.  No one wants to see Cincinatti play Virginia tech in a BCS game this year just like everyone thought a UGA v USC Rose Bowl last year would be better than the actual title game, not to mention the respective Sugar and Rose Bowls.  I say throw out the conference loyalties and, outside of the top 4’s plus one, have 13 bowl games (26 teams plus the 4 playing for the championship would be the top 30 teams in the country).  From there on out have 5 play 6, 7 play 8, 9 play 10, etc.  Take at look at some of the top matchups we would have just based on the current BCS standings:

USC v Penn State (ok so they got one right)

Utah v Texas tech

Boise State v Ohio State

TCU v Cincinnati

Ok State v Ga Tech

Oregon v Georgia

and on down the line.  These might not look like extremely exciting games but wouldn’t you rather see Alabama fighting for the title than playing Utah who would have a much better game against someone like Texas Tech.  And don’t forget we still have the 3 playoff games in addition to these.

This has to be the best way to fix our current system.  It keeps the regular season as the most exciting season of any sport, creates a national championship that actually means something, and would create bowl match-ups year in and year out that would be way more fun to watch (and draw in a lot more money for the networks, bowls, and schools).  So feel free to leave feedback or argue why one of the top 4 I have shouldn’t be there, but I’m telling you, it’s feasible and it works.

I have created this blog as my own personal soapbox.  I have ideas in my head that I want people to know and I want both feedback on my ideas as well as your own original thoughts.  The least I expect from this is a medium to express my ideas, if only to myself, and the most I could hope for is to spark some intelligent conversation.  There won’t be any rhyme or reason to when I write or what I write about.  I’ll write about something that interests me whenever I come across it (or have the time to sit down and write about it).  So that’s it.  Nothing too fancy; nothing really even that important.  Just something to put my ideas out there for myself.