The most addictive thing on the planet is power. Look through an average history textbook and you'll find plenty of examples. Power only causes a want for even more authority, more control. Such is the case in the college football system. There are so many problems with the current system that I probably can't list them all, but they have one unmistakable trait in common. One thing that anybody who has heard any reports about reallignment and/or read the first three sentences of this article knows. They all trace their roots back to a want for power. Re-allignment, the BCS structure, and rampant cheating in college sports can all be traced back to the power struggle between conferences, TV Networks, and various individual schools. Fortunately, there are common sense solutions to all of these problems that I've spent way too much time thinking about. Why? Because I love college football. I can't emphasize this enough. Nowhere else can a quarterback throw for nine touchdowns like Case Keenum did last week. Nowhere else can you show up at any given stadium, no matter how crappy the team, and be assured that at least 90 percent of the stadium are die hard fans (not fairweather fans, not "I'll only go if I can sit in a luxury box" wimp fans. If you watch a college game and an NFL game in succession, you'll see what I mean). Nowhere else can more than fourty teams enter the season as contenders for a National Championship. Unfortunately, the system is flawed because it is manipulated by agents, boosters, athletic directors, and others that are far more cunning than the nineteen year old athletes that they stand to make money from. Since all of these problems are directly related (except for cheating, which is a problem apart from the others), let's start with the BCS System.
BCS BUSTED
Ah, the BCS. The topic of so much debate over the years seemingly has no solution. A quick review of the arguments before we break down the inadequacies of the current system, the BCS is supported by a system of coach's polls and computer formulas that determine bowl games and, most importantly, which two teams should play in the National Championship Game.. BCS supporters argue that the current system is absolutely fine. They say that the National Championship should be between the best teams that play the toughest schedules and that it gives the regular season more weight because every season is like a playoff. BCS detractors argue that teams that aren't part of the Royal and Ancient (named after Augusta's members) of college football (TCU and Boise State in recent years) are unfairly treated. They say that a playoff is the only answer to the question of Who is the Best Team? After a while, so many columnists and bloggers have an opinion on the subject that we forget what we're even arguing about and end up simply insulting each other without coming up with solutions. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing I love more than a good trash talking session, but it gets to a point where it fails to be funny any more and ends up as annoying and counter-productive.
My take on the BCS is that it had a little bit of the right idea. After all, it doesn't make sense that Boise State should be able to whipsaw through an easy schedule and emerge undefeated and play in the title game while Florida might lose twice to LSU and Alabama and end up playing in the ShakeWeight Bowl against Akron. However, it has been morphed from a noble effort to determine the most fair way to choose a national champion to a cash grab for the nation's top historical teams. This is how you end up with a team that went 0-12 in 2009 (Washington) earning more BCS money than a team that went undefeated in that same year (the Sugar Bowl Champion, Utah). According to an article written by Brian Murphy, each automatic qualifying conference takes home roughly 22 million dollars. A total of approximately 25 million dollars is split among the five non-qualifying conferences. See what I mean about a cash grab now? If greedy athletic directors or BCS officials recognized Boise State or TCU as legitimate teams that should play in AQ conferences, their pockets would suddenly start to feel a little bit lighter. There is absolutely a caste system in college football, and teams that are unfortunate enough to have just become good recently are still at the bottom. Not only should the cash grab be ended (remember, wealth and power are the two most addictive things on the planet), but it is an unfair way of choosing a National Champion. The result is that fewer and fewer teams are scheduling the "tough games" that supposedly give the BCS schools a huge advantage over non-BCS schools because they know that they can't sniff the National Championship with one loss. Inversely, teams like Boise State are constantly saddled with crappy schedules (so the computers and polls can again point to lack of schedule strength) with one marquee opponent thrown in (in hopes that they'll lose and the representation problem will be put to rest for another year). The BCS was an honest attempt at proving who was the best that was corrupted when unequal money distribution and the very notion of computers and coaches' polls were added.
Every single "BCS sucks!" person wants a playoff. Everything should be centered around a playoff. Playoff, playoff, playoff. First, let's ask ourselves two quick questions. The first one is; how would playoffs for the top teams work? It's a heck of a lot easier to schedule one game than potentially three (for an eight team playoff), plus there's the issue of logistics. Bowls are scheduled at a bit of a dicey time, with Winter Break and final exams looming within a few weeks of each other. It's very easy to schedule one game, but two or three with a week's break in between each? That's a logistical nightmare before you even get to travel planning and the like. Second of all, a college football playoff will be just like the BCS. How, you ask? With the BCS, there is usually an undefeated team that does not get to play for the National Championship. With a playoff, the undefeated teams can duke it out. OK, that's great. Now how do you propose chosing the one loss teams that get in to the playoff? We still have the same problem as before, just in a different form. So what's the solution? Keep the BCS.
What? But Andrew, you said you'd come up with a new solution! Well, I did. Take a deep breath. I'm going to put the next part in italics because it's super important. Ready? Here we go. We can have the BCS and a playoff at the same time. How? Through strength of schedule reform. First of all, take any and all power that athletic directors have or ever considered having in terms of making the schedule out of their hands. Let them whine about it. They'll live. Then, the conferences will be fixed so that there are no good teams in crappy conferences that can't play any significant in-conference games (more on that plan in the realignment section). Then, establish a hierarchy where performance over the past few years dictates what kind of schedule you have to play out of conference. This way, teams like Ohio State can't schedule patsies in out of conference play to get easy wins. After I break up the SEC a little bit (it pains me to have to do it, but the SEC is so far above everyone else it's ridiculous. Something needs to be done), the talent level in between the conferences won't be that uneven. That way, good teams always play the toughest opponents from their own conference. As for out of conference, have different levels of schedule toughness. For instance, if you're Alabama, you would get the toughest schedule, we'll call it a Class 5 Schedule, because you've had a great deal of success in recent years. A class 5 schedule might dictate playing at four pre-season top thirty five teams (top twenty five seems a bit too extreme), including at least one top five team. Class 4 would be somebody like an LSU who is great now, but has only been very good in recent years, etc. College football advertises that every week is a playoff when it isn't, now every week would be a playoff. Also, take all votes away from coaches and computers. They will not be settling this debate. All votes should go to studio analysts who actually have time to watch every game and can judge for themselves who is the best. Not only would they not have a bias, they would absolutely have more general knowledge about every team in the country than most coaches. The answer to the BCS money problem will be explained later in the realignment section. Under this plan, the BCS people would still be happy because they get to keep their bowl system. Playoff advocates would be happy because strength of schedule wouldn't matter nearly as much any more and good non-AQ teams would get to prove that they belong. Look, this system is not perfect, but it's as close as you can get to a perfect way of determining a national champion fairly and equitibly. If anybody has a reason why this should not happen, I urge them to tell me why. Until then, I can see no good reason not to carry out this plan.
REALIGN THIS
Realignment is not a new college football phenomenon. Contrary to popular belief, NCAA officials do not all gather in one room with a giant roulette wheel, pull out random colleges, and spin the wheel to see what conference they end up in (although that definitely seems plausible given the events of the past year). No, realignment has been happening since the beginning of college football. Usually, it's a moderate change designed to strengthen conferences and make sure that everything is geographically in the right place. In that context, realignment is one of the best things to happen in your sport. However, this is an unprecedented type of realignment spurred by negative things. First of all, we have never seen this many teams jump ship to different conferences. It all starts with some college becoming ticked off that another college just signed its own network deal or that conference's commissioner says the Big 12 is doomed, it could be whatever. Some people, who I assume have no respect for the traditions of the game, say that realignment is good. It leads to a playoff, more conference championships, and more revenue. All that you need to do is block out everything else and keep focusing on those dollar signs.
Then, there are the people that hate it, AKA Me. I know that this is technichally a complex issue with many different opinions and angles, but it's about as black and white to me as anything. The whole reason why we have conferences is to group teams by geography. If you're not going to do that any more, why have conferences? Better yet, why not just put Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma, USC, and all the other most prestigious teams in to one conference? Sounds crazy, right? Well, it's not that much of a stretch. We've already gotten over the biggest obstacle to this happening, which is people caring about what makes geographical sense. The initial exodus from the Big 12 never needed to happen. The exiting schools had legitimate complaints that Texas was getting preferential treatment, and they were right. However, Big 12 comissioner Dan Baby (real name: Dan Beebe) continued to do everything but give important speeches while making the Hook 'Em Horns sign. The NCAA refused to do anything about this, and now they seem genuinely shocked that everybody wants to jump ship. OK, the first realignment could have been easily stopped, but it at least made sense. Suddenly, Pitt and Syracuse are leaving for the ACC, which would be a great idea if they both weren't at least 300 miles from the ocean. This seems significant because, you know, it is called the Atlantic Coastal Conference. Why did that need to happen? Why exactly did the Big East need to break up? Why didn't anybody have the foresight to nip the Big 12 Problems in the bud before it grew unmanagable. Why? Why!?!?!?!?!?!?
Here's the solution, and it's gonna be a doozy. First, seperate football and non-football conference alignment, since it's clear that top universities care 10X more about football than any other college sport, except for basketball in some schools. Next, restore everything to geographical order. If this were to happen, and I hope it will some day, the conferences would shake out like this (some conferences would have ten teams, some would have twelve, based on concentration of quality teams in a particular part of the country. Every conference would have a championship.)
SEC: LSU, Ole Miss, Missisippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Tennessee, Georgia
ACC: Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, Clemson, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Duke, NC State, Virginia, Maryland, Virginia Tech, Navy
Big East: Rutgers, Connecticut,Cincinatti, West Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Kentucky, Army, Boston College
Midwestern Conference (formerly known as Big Ten): Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northwestern, Iowa, Purdue, Notre Dame, Penn State
Big 12: Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, TCU, Colorado
PAC-12: Boise State, Arizona, Arizona State, USC, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Washington, Washington State, Utah
Independents: South Florida, Baylor, Iowa State, BYU
With a few exceptions (such as making South Florida go independent to reduce the SEC to ten teams), each move I made makes geographical sense. The independent teams are that way because there is simply not enough space in each conference for everything to make sense, so they are independent for the time being. However, I am including a clause that says if an independent team (or a team from a non-AQ conference, which includes every conference not listed above plus the independents) performs exceptionally well over a select period of time, then they can move up from a non-AQ conference to an AQ conference. The team that has consistently performed the worst over that same time period will fall down to a non-AQ conference. This way, good teams from the Mountain West, Independents, or even Conference USA can have a chance to play the top teams if they deserve it, while teams that do terribly in AQ conferences are relegated to the "minor leagues" for a while. This also solves the inequity in money distribution between BCS conferences and non BCS conferences. If you become good enough to be a part of a power conference, then you earn the BCS money that befits your status as one of the elite in college football. If you're terrible for too long in a power conference, then you don't deserve to get that BCS money. Not only were the conferences just un-realigned, but the money distribution was just solved too. Also, another way was just found for good non-BCS teams to compete with the top brass of college football. It's somewhat scary that university presidents haven't thought of this stuff yet.
BCS BOOSTED?
And now we've come to the skeleton in college football's closet. When the Miami scandal broke over the Summer, everybodyn seemed shocked. Every news entity and website started printing column and news features with ominous titles like "How Far Has it Gone?" or "The Untold Story of College Football's Underworld". OK, I might have made the last one up. But they were all creepy titles that could easily have been transplanted in to a political action thriller along the lines of "State of Play". I, on the other hand, was shocked that it took so long for everyone to notice. Cheating isn't anytyhing new. The most sever case was the use of the death penalty against SMU and the Pony Express backfield, but that's hardly the only case. Within the past decade, every team in the SEC except Vanderbilt has committed some kind of major rules violation. Many of them have committed several. Why? Well, let's start with school revenue. College football's total profit topped a billion dollars last year for the first time in its history. The largest cut of that revenue went to Texas, whose profit topped 65 million dollars (on a side note, TCU, the rose bowl winner, only made 20 million dollars in total profit. That's barely enough to break even). Inequity? You tell me. Meanwhile, college football players don't get paid. Only the players who are good enough to make it to the NFL have an incentive to play well, and that incentive is related to the NFL and not to their college. On the one hand, I think it's ridiculous that college kids should be paid to play a game. On the other hand, the school is making money off of them, They should get some kind of benefit.
The NCAA has recently passed historic measures to combat the spread of cheating and boosterism. These measures call for giving each player a $2,000 stipend every year. I can already tell that's not going to be enough. The solution to this problem is very simple, players do not get paid unless the wealth is spread between all universities and a seperate pool is established for player funding. 2,000 dollars is chump change compared to the illegal benefits that sleazy agents and boosters supply players with. Unless we can find some type of revenue sharing method or other way that players can take home a significant amount, then the illegal benefits paid to the top players will far outstrip the stipend. I don't have the answers for how to attack the base of the problem, but I can solve the product of that problem; cheating. My plan would be very simple. The death penalty is not to be used unless the words "program wide conspiracy" or "felonies" are being thrown around. Instead, why not give players and teams half-death penalties? Making a constantly cheating team regret their decision by not allowing them to field a competitive team would cripple them, but not hurt the whole conference. For example, my punishment for Miami would be a 5 year bowl ban and a proviso that restricts them from contacting recruits rated by private agencies above three out of five stars (or whatever rating system they use). This ban can be lifted after three years if Miami has no violations of any kind in their sports programs. For the individual players accepting these deals, suspensions and fines are satisfactory for minor offenses. For major violations, their actions will affect their team and their future. For example, some offenses might warrant a bowl ban for the team or a two year long ban for a player. In extreme cases, an offense could warrant a player not being able to play football in the NCAA or NFL ever. Now no booster with half a brain would dare try to tamper with the athletes, lest he risk losing a valuable player for his own university or NFL team. This is a simple yet effective response to cheating in the NCAA.
These are all simple solutions to huge problems, and they might not be the best. But at least it's something, which is very much needed in a college football climate where we have nothing in the way of long term solutions.
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