My Annual Stupid Idea for College Football

Posted by Andy Boyer in Sports

So I’ve seen way more college football than I expected to this year.  In addition to more Husky games than usual, accompanying a graduating senior on some college tours gave me the chance to catch games at WSU and Oregon.  A few quick notes:

  • Oregon fans – You have a cute little minor league stadium, in a cute little minor league town, with a team full of players who are a step away from prison, and a ga-billionaire benefactor who is willing to fund underwater treadmills and have his own little real-life fantasy football team.  Feel free to show a modicum of class and act like you’ve been there before.  You’ve had a good 15 year run, but no national championships.  Unless you actually work at Nike or helped recruit a kid from Houston Junior College, show a little dignity.  Oh, and to the guy in Sec 29, row 24, seat 14 – find a rule book.  
  • Oregon State Fans – How on earth have you guys not showed up at Adidas with a whiteboard and video projector to convince them to go pound for pound against the Nike money in Duck Country?  For that matter, where are you UW?  No one can convince Adidas that it would be a good thing to undercut Oregon?
  • WSU fans – God I hope revenue sharing works in your favor.  Otherwise, I just don’t see how you compete in the Pac-10 much longer.
  • UW fans – I never realized how bad Husky Stadium was.  Take away the view and it’s the worst spot in the Pac-10.  Your renovation is well-deserved.  And I hope it turns out nicer than Oregon’s little stadium with the huge pressbox.

Anyway, every year I throw out a stupid idea for the BCS, and this year I’m early.  I’ve shifted my opinions some for a simple reason.  College Presidents love the Bowl system.  Think about it.  If you are the President of Penn State, every year your team will make SOME bowl.  And for 2 weeks in the middle of cold-ass December/January, instead of being bunked up in Happy Valley, you get an all expense paid vacation to someplace warm.  For 2 weeks, you and your 100 closest friends get to live the high life in a place that isn’t under 12 feet of snow.  Why on earth would you ever give that up for a playoff system?

So my focus this year is not on the BCS schools.  It’s on the non-BCS conferences that always feel screwed.  Here’s what I say to you.

You need to be flexible.  And you need a “Champions” League.

If you want a National Championship shot, you need to make sure all your top teams have a harder schedule.  But the big guys won’t play you.  So you need to get creative.

All of you non BCS conferences need to split into 6 team mini-conferences for football.  So you play 5 “conference games.”  Then, all the top non-BCS conference teams roll into a 7 team “Champions League.”  So your schedule looks like this:

  • 1 game non conference – Try to get a BCS team on your schedule.
  • 5 game Conference schedule.
  • 6 game Champions league (or non-Champions League) schedule.

Why do this?  Well here would be the 7 team gauntlet for the non-BCS Champions League if we implemented that today: 

  • TCU (10-0)
  • Boise ST (10-0)
  • Utah (8-1)
  • UCF (7-2)
  • Houston (5-4)
  • Temple (8-2)
  • Northern Ill (7-2)

Now tell me that if Boise St or TCU runs the table with all the best teams from all the best non-BCS conferences, that they don’t deserve a spot in the Big Show?

Anyway, that’s this year’s dumb idea.