Longball Leads College Football Out of the Wilderness and Into the Light!

And there it is, just as I promised, a true, undisputed National Champion!

Gooooooooood mornin, Coug fans. It’s been a couple weeks since I graced these hallowed pages, but Im back with a vengeance. Usually we leave all the salvation and enlightenment round these parts to the Sutra, but I am taking the wheel today and steering us all to the promised land. This  off-season the college football world is being completely reshaped by ongoing meetings between the major conferences in Chicago. In these closed door sessions the powers that be are wracking their old gray heads trying to come up with a way to fix College Football’s irreparably broken BCS system for determining a national champion. Frankly, I hate all the meager half-assed proposals they seem to be considering, and it seems like they aren’t too pumped about them either. Well I have great news for them. They can all rest their weary heads because I’ve figured it out. Whats my plan? Read on to find out…

Isn’t she beautiful?

Ladies and gents, let me introduce you to the 26 team single elimination playoff. Here is the basic plan:

• We will retain the 6 major conferences (yes, this formula retains the Big East as a major conference).
• To keep their major conference status the 6 major conferences must have two divisions of at least 6 teams each, a championship game and play a 9 game conference schedule.
• Each major conference champion (the winner of the conference championship game) will receive a first round bye in a 26 team tournament.
• To qualify for an automatic bid and first round bye a team must win its conference championship game.
• The remaining 20 teams in the tournament will be selected as follows: 5 automatic bids for each mid-major conference champion, 12 at large major conference bids and 3 at large mid-major bids.
• The tournament would be played on the home field of the team with the highest seed, until the national semifinals and championship game which would be played at neutral sites.
• To accommodate the extension of the season, the regular season will be shortened to 11 games.
• Major conference teams will not be allowed to schedule FCS teams as part of their 2 game non-conference schedule.

Got all that? You probably have some concerns, so I have attempted to anticipate those and address them below:

Why 26 teams? Sounds like an arbitrary number.
For a couple reasons: 1. traditionally college football recognizes a “top 25” which is a fair enough number that nobody outside it can rightfully claim to have a stake in the national title debate (I made it 26 because odd numbers make for wonky brackets). 2. Adding more teams would also extend the season beyond the point that it was practical for student athletes.

But what about the bowls? The tradition! The pageantry! AWWWWW!
I hear ya. I am a sucker for tradition as well. Ted Miller has written quite eloquently about the value of preserving the Rose Bowl and while I was nearly ready to drop the plunger and just detonate the whole thing, I have been swayed. Lets keep the bowls. Here is my proposal for how we do it. I call this, the “Daytona model”. Bowls are bad at determining a national champ, BUT, Bowls are great celebrations of college football’s tradition and, yes, pageantry,and they are great for preserving conference rivalries. Why not preserve the Rose Bowl’s tradition as a pristine battle for bragging rights between the Pac-10 and Big-10? In the “Daytona model” we simply move the Rose Bowl to the beginning of the season.

Daytona, the biggest race of the year is the first race of the year.

I’ll give you a minute to pick yourself up off the floor. Ok? Here’s how it works. The Rose Bowl will be played in early September between the Big-10 and Pac-12 champs of the previous season for nothing more than conference bragging rights, just as it should be!!! As for the other bowls, I don’t care nearly as much about the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Cotton, etc. But some people do, so I propose the other conferences adopt their own “Daytona model” game (SEC vs. Big-12 in the Sugar, Big East vs. ACC in the Orange), or we can divide them up amongst the semi-final and championship games. In this scenario I can also imagine some of the smaller bowls carrying on with post-season matchups of teams that did not make the tournament. These would serve as College Football’s NIT, if you will.

But what about the potential for deserving teams to get snubbed?
This will exist, especially since 15 of the 26 teams will be chosen “at large” much like the NCAA basketball tournament teams are selected. Frankly, this is an acceptable risk for a number of reasons. While there may be “bubble” teams that will cry foul when their name isn’t called, at the end of the day, the national champion will not be in dispute at all. There will also be some controversy around seeding and matchups, but some amount of controversy and argument is part of the flavor of the sport and I think this preserves just the right amount. And another thing, imagine the excitement of a “Selection Sunday” for College football!

Whew, so there it is… I’ve fixed college football. Now it truly is the greatest sport on the planet with the most exciting post season in the history of mankind.