My fix for College Football

[The River Assassin]

Let me start by saying I want a college football playoff just as much as the next guy, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. So until that day comes I think I might have a solution so that the current system is a little more balanced across the board. Let me know what you think.

Rather than trying to make over the entire bowl/polls system, let's just tweak it a little bit. Would it be that difficult to reorganize conferences? Say every five years. I don't see how that would be hard. Notre Dame is independent in football, but plays in the Big East in Basketball. Not to mention almost half the D1 Bball teams in the Big East don't even play D1 football. So here is what I have come up with.

Let's say 2010 was the first year this was going to happen. First, for a team to be eligible to move to a BCS conference they must first have these three accomplishments.

1. Won at least two conference titles in the last five years in their current conference.

2. Played in at least one BCS bowl game in the last five years.

3. Won at least two bowl games in the last five years.

Now, we can't just move any team down, so they can only move up if a team in a BCS conference has these three strikes.

1. No conference or division titles in the last five years. So teams in the SEC, Big 12, and ACC that won their division but not the conference are safe from demotion.

2. No bowl wins in the last five years.

3. No BCS bowl game in the last five years.

Only teams that have meet all three are eligible to move up or down.

So for example TCU would be eligible to move up in 2010. A likely place would be the Big 12. The teams with three strikes in the Big 12 off the top of my head are A&M and Baylor. The Big 12 would then review the accomplishments of these three teams and decide which one would be best to move down, then add TCU in their place. The same will be done for BSU and the Pac10. I can't think of any other teams that would eligible for 2010. But this would only be done for football. TCU would still play in the MWC for all other sports.

That's all I got so far.

Discuss.

[fischer]

they do that in kickball over in Europe.


It seems to work well. I think it could work. It won't ever happen.

[The River Assassin]

I don't think it will happen either, but I think it might have a better chance than a playoff.

[fischer]

I don't. Conferences are aligned and tied up with money. They are not going to go for that. No one who has the power to make that change would want that.

[The River Assassin]

I understand that, but you don't think the Big 12 would drop Baylor from football, a team that sucks money from schools like tu and OU and replace them with TCU. This wouldn't be a common thing. In the last 10 years the only three teams that I can think off that would be eligible are TCU, BSU, and Utah. For the most part everthing would stay the same. Changes like this would only come around a few times a decade.

[fischer]

What I am saying is that they can't do it. Baylor would have to sign off on it, and that would be really stupid. All the teams currently in the conference would have to sign off on it, and not a one of them would do that.

[The River Assassin]

Screw them, if you don't sign off on it you are out of the conference. Pretty easy fix right there.

Yes, I know that is not possible, but I'm sure there is some way around that. How about if you don't sign off on it you are no longer eligible for revenue sharing. Yeah you get to stay in the conference, but you miss out on all that BCS/bowl money for the next five years.

[fischer]

No team would sign it. College football is very cycical. Any team could be down for 5 years (see Texas and OU in the 90's). They would be retarded to sign off on that. They are already in, and could care less how the fans feel or TCU feels.

[The River Assassin]

When was the last time tu or OU went five years without a bowl win? The big guys (OU, tu, USC, tOSU, etc.) would have to be WAY down to even be eligible for demotion. Like I said, most BCS teams wouldn't even be eligible to move down and there would be very few non BCS teams that would be eligible to move up. For 95% of college football teams nothing would change. It would just be a way to reward really good teams from non BCS conferences.

[fischer]

OU was really bad there for quite a few years. Not sure if they went 5 without winning a bowl game. But it could very easily have happened.

That is why there would be zero teams sign off on that thing. It offers no advantage to them. none. You are forgetting that the schools collectively run the conference.

[The River Assassin]

You are correct, the teams do run the conference, but they don't run the bowl games. All you would need is to get the bowl games behind this and the dominoes would start to fall. And I don't see why the bowl games wouldn't get behind this considering it would put an end to the playoff talk for a little while.

[fischer]

that would be the only way, but the problem there is that they all would have to do that, and that would be incredibly hard. Some of them would hold out due to contracts with conferences.

[The River Assassin]

I never said this would be easy.

[Kickball Kevin]

I read an article the other day that a lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require there to be a playoff in college football. I'll see if I can find it.

[fischer]

don't they have bigger things to worry about?