As an Oregon Duck fan, I have been fiendishly waiting for the start of college football ever since, well, the end of last season. There’s nothing like a beautiful Saturday in the late summer or early fall, with the anticipation of a big time college football season lingering in the air. While you may spend the hours up to the game preparing your tailgater, catching up an old college buddy, or simply regaling tales of your summer exploits, as the hours tick to minutes the pure child-like excitement of a new season begins to take hold. That giddy little grin starts to creep up on your face, and you exchange a knowing glance and nod at your nearest fellow fan. College football is about to begin. This is not a test. This is the real deal.
Some may try to argue that I’m a week late to discuss the opening week of college football season, but, let’s be real here. As a Ducks fan, and with all due respect to the South Dakota Coyotes, this week’s inter-conference mega-showdown with fellow top 10 team Michigan State is the first game of the season. In that respect, Ducks fans are lucky. A lot of teams don’t get to start their season for another few weeks, when conference play gets underway.
It’s an all too familiar pattern in college football over the past decade or so. Teams going out of their way to schedule a litany of under-matched opponents to feast on, in hopes of inflating their record, and turning sub-par teams into 6-6 bowl teams, average teams into 8-4 top 25 teams, and all but assuring 10 wins and BCS consideration for the college football elite.
It has gotten so bad, that teams are now lauded for even scheduling a “Power 5” (formerly “BCS”) conference opponent at all, even if that team is a perennial doormat in their conference. Even when we do get an intersectional top 10 matchup, it’s usually a one-off neutral site game in some glitzy NFL stadium, with all the history and charm of a shopping mall. Rare are than the home-and-home series’ that send college football fans all over the country to explore foreign campuses, visit historic stadiums, and participate in the unique traditions that make college football great.
There are only 12 precious weeks in which we have to enjoy college football, why do so many teams insist on wasting ¼ of that on pointless, uninteresting and downright insulting games with the likes of Florida Atlantic, The Citadel, Tulsa and San Jose State (this week’s opponents for top 5 teams Alabama, Florida State, Oklahoma and Auburn, respectively)? How can we convince teams to reward their loyal fans and give them a full schedule of meaningful out of conference games, in order to make the first month of college football into something actually worth getting excited for?
Well, the first step, in my opinion has already being taken, as the NCAA has ousted the computer and human poll based BCS system, and instituted a 4-team playoff selected by a committee. More importantly, this committee unequivocally stated that strength of schedule is going to weigh heavily in their decision-making process. It remains to be seen how this will be applied, but, even the mere mention of an emphasis on strength of schedule has led to a flurry of big-time matchups being announced. In the past couple months, we’ve already seen home-and-home series announced between Oklahoma-Nebraska, Michigan-Washington, and UCLA-Texas A&M, with more expected to come.
That’s a great start, but, in my opinion, it’s not taking things far enough, as it’s basically letting teams off the hook, as long as they schedule one tough out of conference game (which many already do). There is still no incentive in the current system to put your team at risk for multiple out of conference losses, with 8 or 9 grueling conference opponents already etched into the schedule.
So, if putting an emphasis on strength of schedule won’t do it, how can the College Football Playoff selection committee make it so nearly EVERY out of conference game is a marquee game? Simple: Only allow conference champions to play in the playoff.
While it’s true that this would actually de-emphasize the non-conference schedule a great deal, it’s that exact fact that will lead to teams looking for better matchups for those games.
How does that get teams to schedule tougher, more interesting matchups? Glad you asked!
If starting the season 1-2 or 0-3 (or, 0-4, depending on the conference) didn’t preclude you from a chance at a national title, why WOULDN’T you want to schedule the best of the best in the “pre-season”?
From a coaching standpoint, who do you think prepares you more for the weekly challenge of conference play, Portland State or Wisconsin? Most power conference teams get bigger challenges from their scout teams, than from FCS opponents. Now, surely you wouldn’t want to play Alabama, Florida State and Oklahoma in consecutive weekends, but, why wouldn’t a team like Oregon want to play a pre-season schedule that consisted of, say, Maryland, Baylor and Alabama? Sure, you could lose 2 of those 3 pretty easily, but, you’re telling me that you don’t think your team would be better because of it? Win or lose, playing against the speed of Baylor and the power of Alabama will make the likes of Arizona State’s spread and Stanford’s power run game seem like walks in the park.
Either you realize early on that you can play with and beat anyone out there, or you see first-hand how far away you are from the top. Either way, any coach worth his salt should be able to use those kinds of tough matchups to better prepare their team for conference play, and, thus, a run towards a national championship.
More importantly, though, look at it from an athletic department standpoint. Their main goals when putting together a schedule are to help the team win/get to the best bowl possible, put butts in seats, charge top dollar for those seats, and keep those butts in the seats long enough to spend an arm and a leg for a hot dog, nachos and a soda. If they can get their school some national exposure in the process, all the better.
Given those objectives, and the fact that losing a pre-season game (or 3) wouldn’t jeopardize the team’s goals, then it becomes a no brainer to go out and try to schedule an Ohio State or Georgia, rather than Sacramento State of Tennessee Tech. Even taking into account that you’d be scheduling a home-and-home (and, thus, missing out on a home game every other year), that will be more than made up for in the fact that you can charge 3 times as much for those games than you could for the glorified scrimmages that are the annual FCS beatdowns.
For example, this year Oregon is charging $25 for the opener against South Dakota, and $90 for the week 2 matchup against defending Rose Bowl Champions Michigan State. Despite the dramatic price difference, guess which game sold out quicker. Guess which game is being talked about by every college football media outlet in the land all week long. On top of that, I’d be willing to bet a shiny nickel that fan interest, as well as concession and merchandize profits follow suit.
Now, the biggest argument against only allowing conference champions is the whole “What if the 2nd best team is from the same conference as the best team?” Well, tough luck. Sure, you might leave out some good (or, even great) teams, but, if you’re not the best team in your conference, by definition, you can’t be the best team in the country. At the end of the day, a playoff isn’t meant to put the 4 or 8 or 16 BEST overall teams, it’s the most DESERVING teams. That’s why the 10-6 Cardinals didn’t get into the NFL playoffs last year, while the 8-7-1 Packers did, or why the 48-34 Phoenix Suns got left out in the NBA for the 38-44 Atlanta Hawks, and so on and so forth.
The other major complaint with only accepting conference champs, and thus devaluing the out of conference matchups is that it takes away one of the great things about college football, that every game matters. “Every week is a playoff” is the axiom. That’s a great sound bite, but, with a litany of 1 and 2 loss national champions throughout college football history, it’s simply not true.
Instead of focusing on this idea of a “perfect” national champion, college football should take a cue from the NFL and focus on filling the schedule with a plethora of intriguing matchups week in and week out, keeping as many teams alive in the championship picture for as long as possible, and then watch as their playoff captivates the nation. That’s how you build a brand, and make what is already a great product, even greater.
The institution of a true playoff in college football is a long-needed step in the right direction. However, it’s only the first step of the journey. With a few tweaks, we may actually get the opening weekend we deserve, and, that’s something to get excited about.
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