Joe Fixes College Football
In Resch newsletters past, I’ve mostly written about podcasts. How to plan them, how to produce them, the keys to making them worth listening to, yada yada yada…you get the idea. And maybe one day I’ll have more to say on that sort of stuff. The point is those entries were all for you. This one—the 3rd quarter of 2022—well, this one is just for me. Me and my soapbox that is.
College football is broken. It’s been broken. And with USC and UCLA set to join the Big Ten (what?) and the college football playoff about to balloon from 4 teams to 12, we’re now teetering on the brink of things being shattered beyond repair.
Thankfully, I’m here to fix it. And it’s only going to take me about 600 words.
It’s actually a pretty easy fix. My solution is anchored by one simple premise: college football used to be better. Remember 1997? Remember when an undefeated Michigan team split a national title with an undefeated Nebraska team, leaving exactly no one satisfied? That was still better than what we have today. It was a better time for the sport. It was a better landscape. And week in and week out, there was simply just more at stake. How do we get some of that back while also giving fans the kind of playoff they’ve been clamoring for? I’ll tell you how. Step-by-step:
STEP 1: Throw money out of the equation. Money is what ruined college football in the first place, so it only makes sense to give it no consideration in efforts to improve the product. Conference expansion, needless conference title games, more and more big games being played at completely sterile neutral-sites and being completely boring as a result—all of it has been driven by money and all of it has diluted what was once an incredibly strong, entertaining product.
STEP 2: Conferences are to be capped at 10 members. Sorry Penn State, you’re out. And to help accommodate this requirement, we’ll be reverting to some older versions of several conferences and completely reviving a few other than have long been dead, with a few minor (and not perfect) tweaks along the way. Anyway, welcome back to the Big Eight, Big East, and Southwest conferences. You’ve all been missed. In addition to updated versions of the Big 10, SEC, Pac 10, and ACC, that brings us to seven “power” conferences. The perfect number, but more on that later. I’ve got it all in an Excel file if you want to see it.
STEP 3: Every conference plays a 9-game conference schedule. Everyone plays EVERYONE. And if there happens to be a tie at the top of the conference at the end of the year, we go back to working through a list of 9 million tiebreakers to determine the one true champion, because…
STEP 4: Conference title games are GONE. They’re dumb and they’ve always been dumb. Seriously, what purpose do they serve? Teams have lost these games and still found their way into national title contention. That’s stupid. It shouldn’t work that way. These games are largely pointless, and I promise you won’t miss them.
STEP 5: Bring back the BCS or something like it. But not how you’re thinking. Hot take: the BCS was actually kind of awesome. Over its 15-year run, the BCS got #1 and #2 right almost every time, which was really all it needed to do. It wasn’t perfect, but all in all, it worked phenomenally well and there’s a place for it in my college football utopia. And just for good measure, let’s make sure it’s tweaked to really reward teams playing legitimately tough non-conference schedules. Some eggheads in the basement of NCAA headquarters can figure out the math. Bottom line: No more warms-ups against the Woffords of the world. Those 3 non-conference games a year need to count, and at least one of them should be big deal, marquee game on a regular basis (welcome back Notre Dame vs. Michigan).
STEP 6: Implement an 8-team playoff. But who are the eight teams? I’m glad you asked. Winners from each of the seven “power” conference mentioned earlier earn an automatic bid, with the eighth spot going to the highest ranked remaining team, as ranked by the BCS. BSC rankings will also be used to determine seeding.
Work the bowls into it. Or don’t. I don’t care. The Rose Bowl has been dead for a while anyway, so who cares? Personally, I probably rather see the whole playoff unfold on college campuses, with higher seeds getting the home game. Georgia vs. Ohio State in Columbus in December would be awesome. But if people really want to keep the bowl system, that’s fine too. I’m sure there’s a way to make that work.
That’s it. Is it perfect? No, but it’s close. And more importantly, it’s absolutely better than what we currently have, and what we’ll be getting in the very near future. My system preserves the sanctity of the regular season, give everyone the expanded playoff they’ve been clamoring for, upholds the regionalism of college football and all the incredible rivals that come with it (something we’re absolutely losing) and finally, allows Notre Dame to preserve its independence, because Notre Dame is, and always will be, just a little bit more special than everyone else.