The Sports Fix: College Football, Part 2 of 2

PART 2: THE BOWL SYSTEM

You have already seen my idea for re-alignment for Division 1 college sports, now it is time for me to fix the broken post-season that we have in College Football.  Let me first say that I didn’t mind the BCS.  I didn’t like some of the factors that went into the computers that spit out the match-ups, but most years, they did get it right.  To me it doesn’t matter if you have the BCS with 2 teams, or a playoff with 4, 8, 12 or 16 teams, those games will always be exciting have people watching.  It is the bowl system that needs fixed. So how do we fix it you ask?

A Bowl Draft.

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like a draft?  Well it can work for college football and the bowl system too. 

Hear me out now. I think we all realize that despite being entertaining, the post-season in college football right now consists of 3 important games, the two semifinals and the national championship game.  Then they also give us 37 absolutely meaningless games.  With my 12-team playoff (See Sports Fix College Football Part 1) that becomes 11 meaningful games.  However, you still have the meaningless bowl games.  The 1^st thing that I would do is cut down the number of bowl games.  If we cut that number down to 30 (still too many in my mind) it still gives the networks and fans just about the same amount of games we currently have in the post-season, but gets rid of the low-level bowls that nobody watches or cares about.

With 12 teams going to the playoff and 30 bowls, we need to have 72 teams eligible for post-season play out of the 130 FBS teams.  Right now, 78 of 128 get into the post-season. As you can see it really only eliminates 6 teams from the postseason every year, and to be honest, they probably didn’t deserve a spot anyway if they were in that bottom 6.

I would then have the College Football Playoff Committee rank all bowl eligible teams, not just the Top 25.  After that we would use those rankings to pair up the teams for each bowl.  The catch is, we allow each bowl to draft their ideal match-ups.  So here is how it would work.

THE BASICS:

1) The College Football Playoff Sites are obviously protected games and will select their teams before the draft starts.

2) Using bowl payouts, we create our draft order. 2 of the current “New Year’s 6 Bowls” would be used as semifinal sites for the playoff, so only 4 of them would be in the draft each year.  Those remaining 4 bowls would always have the top 4 draft spots, on a rotating cycle.  Those games would also always be played on New Year’s Day (unless it fell on a Sunday, then they would be played either New Year’s Eve or January 2^nd).  After that, the Citrus bowl is the bowl with the highest payout, therefore they have the 5^th selection.  We continue this order through all the bowl games.  Based on the 2016 bowl season and payouts, this year the draft order would look like this:

1. Rose Bowl

2. Sugar Bowl

3. Orange Bowl

4. Cotton Bowl

5. Citrus Bowl ($8.5M)

6. Alamo Bowl ($7.65M)

7. Outback Bowl ($7M)

8. Cactus Bowl ($6.65M)

9. Texas Bowl ($6M)

10. Holiday Bowl ($5.65M)

11. Music City Bowl ($5.5M)

12. Tax Slayer Bowl ($5. 5M)

13. Russell Athletic Bowl ($4.55M)

14. Foster Farms Bowl ($4.425M)

15. Sun Bowl ($4.3M)

16. Pinstripe Bowl ($4M)

17. Belk Bowl ($3.4M)

18. Liberty Bowl ($2.875M)

19. Las Vegas Bowl ($2.7M)

20. Cure Bowl ($2.7M)

21. Independence Bowl ($2.4M)

22. Quick Lane Bowl ($2.4M)

23. Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl ($2.2M)

24. Miami Beach Bowl ($2M)

25. Military Bowl ($2M)

26. Birmingham Bowl ($2M)

27. Dollar General Bowl ($1.5M)

28. Armed Forces Bowl ($1.35M)

29. Hawaii Bowl ($1.3M)

30. Poinsettia Bowl ($1.225M)

31. St. Petersburg ($1.075M)

32. New Orleans Bowl ($1M)

33. New Mexico Bowl ($912,500)

34. Bahamas Bowl ($900,000)

35. Boca Raton Bowl ($800,000)

36. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl ($650,000)

37. Arizona Bowl (TBA)

REMINDER, we would only be using 30 bowls, so 7 of these bowls would be eliminated. This is what the bowl payouts are for this year, just to give you an idea of what each bowl is working with right now.

THE DRAFT:

The way the draft would work is simple. There would be absolutely no conference affiliations with any bowls. There would be no automatic bids for any conference. As mentioned before, 12 teams would automatically be placed in the playoff.  After that, it is a free for all, minus a few simple rules.

* Bowls will select in order, with a pool of 10 teams to pick. For instance, this year with the 1^st pick, the Rose Bowl would be able to pick any 2 teams that finished 13-22 in the final committee rankings. (Remember the #1-12 are off the board and in the playoff.)  Next pick would be the Sugar Bowl and 2 more teams would open up for their selection, teams #23-24. And so on and so forth, until all the bowls are filled.

* No team can drop more than 5 bowl games. Meaning every team must be selected within five games of becoming available. This rewards teams for successful seasons despite how unattractive they might be as a bowl team. It would also prevent teams with great history and huge fan bases being selected to bowls they don’t deserve.

Think about what this type of format would do for the college football post-season.

First, ESPN could/would sell the hell out of the live draft. They did a 4-hour show on the unveiling of the 4 Playoff teams on Sunday, can you imagine what they would able to do if they also had a Bowl Draft immediately after their playoff unveil?  Imagine a greenroom with 72 different head coaches and AD’s, to go along with a “war room” for the bowls and the committee members.  Each bowl representative comes on stage to make their pick, followed by the coaches and AD’s from each school come on stage, shake hands, have a quick photo-op.  Rece Davis, David Pollack, Desmond Howard and Kirk Herbstreit then talk about that bowl, give some story lines and talk about each team in the game for a few minutes, maybe even interview the coach or AD from the schools. Then while all that is happening, 2 more bowl teams are unveiled, which means 2 more fan bases are not pulled in to the intrigue of the broadcast.  Everybody wins. The schools get some press, the bowls gets their individual time in the national spotlight, the coaches get a little face time and the network gets millions of eyeballs on their broadcast.

Another benefit to this system is you don’t have repetition. Bowl attendances have been way down the past few years and a big reason is fans don’t want to go back to the same bowls every few years.  With the current conference tie-ins teams are limited to a very small group of potential bowl sites. So even if you go to a different bowl every year within your conference affiliation, after about 8 years you are repeating your bowl site.  This way you have the potential of 30 different sites, not 8 or 9.

This format also helps other conferences get a chance to play each other. For instance, the Big Ten has nine bowl affiliations this year, none of which includes the Big XII.  The same goes for the PAC 12 and SEC.  With all of their bowls, they never have it set that those 2 prestigious conferences play each other in bowl games.  It could also give teams from the AAC, C-USA, MAC and MWC a chance to play a Power 5 conference team.  Most of those conferences have affiliations with each other and don’t get a chance to face a Power 5 team in bowl season.

THE MONEY:

First things first, a 12-team playoff will bring in more television revenue than the current 37 meaningless bowls do COMBINED!  People might complain that this is taking money away from teams/conferences since the bowl contracts with conferences all but guarantee a certain amount of money that every conference knows that they will receive come bowl season. I disagree. In this system, the bowl payouts would go up, which would create a larger pot for the teams and conference.  The reason the payouts would go up is because the more a bowl is willing to pay the better draft pick that bowl has to pick the best match-up possible.  If you want to get better teams to your bowl game, you up your payout.

Payouts would have to be submitted before the season starts in a blind bid, the draft order would then be announced closer to the end of the season. If the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl wanted to make a splash next year to celebrate the 20th year of the bowl, they could make a larger bid than they might normally, and get a match-up between top 15-20 teams instead of teams between 50-60.

One last detail I would change is the bowl payouts. Instead of each team splitting the pot and putting on an exhibition for the fans, I would have the result of the game determine the payout. Winning team takes two-thirds and the losing team gets one-third.  Make the games matter.

I know that this does not fix all the problems in the college football post-season, but I think it does make bowl season better. I know as a fan of college football I get sick of the same match-ups in all the big games.  The chances of playing in the Cotton Bowl or Rose Bowl are currently non-existent if you are an ACC team.  The only bowl a PAC12 team can get on or around New Year’s Day is now the Rose Bowl.  The Outback Bowl, Citrus Bowl and Tax Slayer Bowl are games for only the Big Ten, ACC and SEC, sorry PAC12 and Big XII.  This should not be the case and it wouldn’t be under this new system.

Change is good.

Change is needed.

If you missed The Sports Fix: College Football Part 1, check it out HERE!

The Sports Fix: College Football, Part 1 of 2

PART 1: Re-Alignment

With all the recent controversy regarding the Final 4 from the College Football Playoff Committee, it got me thinking that there has to be a better way to have college football to crown a national champion.  I don’t have a problem with a selection committee making the tough decisions on how to select 4 teams out of 128 division 1 teams.  I don’t have a problem only 4 teams being selected for the playoff, when there are 5 Power Conferences in FBS.  (And for the record, I didn’t have a problem with the 4 teams the committee selected this year for the playoff.)  Where I do have a problem, is the idea that winning your conference championship should matter.

The College Football Selection Committee has “Championships Won” listed as one of their main criteria when selecting teams for the playoff.  By doing this they are completely ignoring, the fact that conference championships are nothing more than a title.  It no longer actually tells who the best team in that conference actually is.  Why you ask?  The conferences are TOO BIG!

The biggest argument when the playoff was announced on Sunday was that Penn State was left out despite winning the toughest conference in football this season.  (I am still not sold on the Big Ten being the best conference, we will learn a lot more from the bowl games and the playoff.) The argument was that either Washington or Ohio State should have been bumped for Penn State.  Ohio State became the 1^st non-conference champion to make the playoff in its 3-year history.

Again, let me say…  The conferences are TOO BIG!!!  There is no denying that Penn State won the Big Ten East division over Ohio State and Michigan, the issue that I have with that title is that Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan didn’t all play the same conference schedule.  Declaring one team a champion, when not all teams are playing on an even playing field makes no sense.  In the Big Ten each team plays the 6 teams in their division and 3 crossover games.  This year Ohio State played at Wisconsin and home against Nebraska and Northwestern, those teams finished 1^st, 2^nd and 5^th in the B1G West.  Michigan also played Wisconsin at home as well as at Iowa and a home game vs Illinois, those teams finished 1^st, 3^rd and 6^th in the B1G West.  Penn State on the other hand played home against Iowa and Minnesota and on the road against Purdue, those teams finished 3^rd, 4^th and 7^th in the Big Ten.  So Ohio State went on the road to Madison and beat Wisconsin, the same team that Penn State needed the largest comeback for in conference championship game history, to beat on a neutral field, while Penn State got the 3^rd and 4^th place teams (Iowa/Minn) at home at their lone road crossover game was Purdue, arguably one of the worst 5 Major Conference teams in the nation.  That is a good way to decide a “Champion”?

This year there was 4 conference championship games from the Power 5 Conferences and you could make the argument that none of the four featured the 2 best teams from their conference.

In the ACC, Clemson faced Virginia Tech. Clemson was ranked #3 in the nation and was an obvious choice to be in the game, but VT was 9-3 and ranked 23^rd.  Meanwhile, Florida State and Louisville, ranked 12^th and 13^th respectively, were left at home watching. Louisville even finished with a better ACC record that VT while playing in the more difficult division.

 

In the Big Ten, we discussed that Penn State won, due to uneven scheduling and beating Ohio State head-to-head, but wouldn’t you don’t you think that Ohio State, who beat Wisconsin on the Badgers home field would be a better match-up if we are trying to find out who the best team is?  After all, the Buckeyes lost to Penn State in State College, this game would have been on a neutral field.

The PAC 12 Championship game featured their two highest ranked teams in Washington (4) and Colorado (8) while USC (11) sat at home.  Seems fine, but USC also was responsible for the only losses that either of those teams had in conference play, beating both of them.

And finally, the SEC championship game featured Alabama, obviously and an 8-3 Florida team that lost the week before by 18 points.  Florida, like Penn State made their conference championship game with the help of a weak crossover schedule in the SEC.  The Gators lost to Tennessee, the team that finished 2^nd in the SEC East, but still won the division because while Tennessee played #8 Texas A&M and #1 Alabama in back-to-back weeks as their crossover games, Florida played Arkansas and LSU.  Alabama beat Florida by 38 in the conference championship game and it could have been much worse.

As a matter of fact, the only conference that actually had their 2 best teams playing against each other was the Big XII, and that wasn’t an official championship game, although because how the season played out, the winner of that game was the Big XII Champion.  Interestingly, the Big XII is the only Power 5 Conference without a championship game because their conference is, get this, too SMALL!

My resolution, as I’m sure you could guess, is contracting the conferences.  Currently we have 10 conferences with 128 teams in FBS. Right now, half of those teams are in the Power 5 Conferences, ACC (14), Big Ten (14), Big XII (10), PAC 12 (12), SEC (14).  With 60 teams residing in the Group of 5 conferences, while the remaining 4 teams sit as current independents.

If we are shrinking the conferences it also allows us to re-align to bring back geographical rivals and limit travel between schools.  In my format, we have 10-team conferences.  With 130 schools, adding UAB who will start their football program back up in 2017 and Coastal Carolina, who is moving from FCS to FBS status in 2017, that gives us a perfect number.  130 teams in 13 conferences.  80 Power Conference Schools (up from 64) and 50 (Minor Conference Schools).   All teams will be affiliated with a conference, sorry Notre Dame.

While shrinking the conferences (and growing some), we obviously have to re-align.  I chose to do the conferences primarily based on geography, but keeping in mind the historical value of both the conferences as well as the many rivalries that schools have developed over the years.  It is not perfect, as you can’t please everybody, but here is what I came up with.

80 POWER CONFERENCE SCHOOLS

8 10-TEAM CONFERENCES

ACC

1. Clemson Tigers
2. Duke Blue Devils
3. Florida State Seminoles
4. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
5. Miami Hurricanes
6. North Carolina Tar Heels
7. North Carolina State Wolfpack
8. Virginia Cavaliers
9. Virginia Tech Hokies
10. Wake Forest Demon Deacons

CONCEPT:
Original ACC, with the addition of Miami and Virginia Tech and without Maryland.  Every team has at least one regional rival.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Miami to Virginia, 858 miles

BIG EAST

1. Boston College Eagles
2. Connecticut Huskies
3. Maryland Terrapins
4. Navy Midshipmen
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
6. Penn State Nittany Lions
7. Pitt Panthers
8. Rutgers Scarlet Knights
9. Syracuse Orange
10. West Virginia Mountaineers

CONCEPT:
Mid-Atlantic teams and old rivals. Notre Dame added due to their history with BC, Navy, Pitt, Penn State & Syracuse.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Boston College to Notre Dame, 776 miles

BIG TEN

1. Indiana Hoosiers
2. Illinois Fighting Illini
3. Iowa Hawkeyes
4. Michigan Wolverines
5. Michigan State Spartans
6. Minnesota Golden Gophers
7. Northwestern Wildcats
8. Ohio State Buckeyes
9. Purdue Boilermakers
10. Wisconsin Badgers

CONCEPT:
Plain and simple, the original Big Ten.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Ohio State to Wisconsin, 622 miles

CENTRAL

1. Alabama Birmingham Blazers
2. Central Florida Knights
3. Cincinnati Bearcats
4. East Carolina Pirates
5. Louisville Cardinals
6. Marshall Thundering Herd
7. Memphis Tigers
8. South Florida Bulls
9. Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles
10. Vanderbilt Commodores

CONCEPT:
All the leftovers of the good but not great programs East of the Mississippi.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Cincinnati to South Florida, 780 miles

MIDWEST

1. Boise State Broncos
2. BYU Cougars
3. Colorado Buffaloes
4. Colorado State Rams
5. Iowa State Cyclones
6. Kansas Jayhawks
7. Kansas State Wildcats
8. Missouri Tigers
9. Nebraska Cornhuskers
10. Utah Utes

CONCEPT:
The remaining misfits left out of the other Power conferences. All west of the Mississippi.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Boise State to Missouri, 1278 miles

PAC-10

1. Arizona Wildcats
2. Arizona State Sun Devils
3. California Golden Bears
4. Oregon Ducks
5. Oregon State Beavers
6. Stanford Cardinal
7. UCLA Bruins
8. USC Trojans
9. Washington Huskies
10. Washington State Cougars

CONCEPT:
The original PAC-10. It was a perfect set-up before with natural rivalries, now it is back to its original state.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Arizona to Washington, 1220 miles

SEC

1. Alabama Crimson Tide
2. Auburn Tigers
3. Florida Gators
4. Georgia Bulldogs
5. Kentucky Wildcats
6. LSU Tigers
7. Mississippi Rebels
8. Mississippi State Bulldogs
9. South Carolina Gamecocks
10. Tennessee Volunteers

CONCEPT:
The SEC with a more regional approach, by getting rid of teams on the outskirts like Vanderbilt and Arkansas.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Kentucky to LSU, 651 miles

SOUTH WEST

1. Arkansas Razorbacks
2. Baylor Bears
3. Houston Cougars
4. Oklahoma Sooners
5. Oklahoma State Cowboys
6. SMU Mustangs
7. TCU Horned Frogs
8. Texas Longhorns
9. Texas A&M Aggies
10. Texas Tech Red Raiders

CONCEPT:
A Mix of the old SWC and the Big 8, basically taking Texas and Oklahoma with the addition of Arkansas, which borders both states, and has had rivalries with these schools in the past.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Houston to Oklahoma State, 451 miles

50 MINOR CONFERENCE SCHOOLS

5 10-TEAM CONFERENCES

BIG SOUTH

1. Arkansas State Red Wolves
2. Louisiana Tech Bulldogs
3. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns
4. Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks
5. North Texas Mean Green
6. Rice Owls
7. Texas State Bobcats
8. Tulane Green Wave
9. UTEP Miners
10. UTSA Roadrunners

CONCEPT:
Pretty much the same footprint as the SOUTH WEST CONFERENCE, but with the smaller programs.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Tulane to UTEP, 977 miles

COASTAL

1. Appalachian State Mountaineers
2. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers
3. Charlotte 49ers
4. Florida Atlantic Owls
5. Florida International Panthers
6. Georgia Southern Eagles
7. Georgia State Panthers
8. Old Dominion Monarchs
9. South Alabama Jaguars
10. Troy Trojans

CONCEPT:
From Virginia all the way to Florida, with a touch of Alabama. Lots of natural rivalries based on locale.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Old Dominion to South Alabama, 800 miles

GREAT LAKES

1. Akron Zips
2. Army Black Knights
3. Bowling Green Falcons
4. Buffalo Bulls
5. Kent State Golden Flashes
6. Massachusetts Minutemen
7. Miami (OH) Red Hawks
8. Ohio Bobcats
9. Temple Owls
10. Toledo Rockets

CONCEPT:
The remaining Northeast schools from New England, hugging the Great Lakes to Ohio.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Miami (OH) to UMASS, 667 miles

MID AMERICAN

1. Air Force Falcons
2. Ball State Cardinals
3. Central Michigan Chippewas
4. Eastern Michigan Eagles
5. Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders
6. Northern Illinois Huskies
7. Tulsa Golden Tornadoes
8. Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
9. Western Michigan Broncos
10. Wyoming Cowboys

CONCEPT:
The Western teams from the current MAC, mixed with some other Midwest schools that fit demographically.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Eastern Michigan to Wyoming, 1131 miles

WESTERN

1. Fresno State Bulldogs
2. Hawaii Rainbow Warriors
3. Idaho Vandals
4. Nevada Wolf Pack
5. New Mexico Lobos
6. New Mexico State Aggies
7. San Diego State Aztecs
8. San Jose State Spartans
9. UNLV Rebels
10. Utah State Aggies

CONCEPT:
The smaller western programs. Lots of teams from the current MWC.

FURTHEST TRAVEL:
Idaho to New Mexico State, 1137 miles

Obviously, this re-alignment would not please everybody, but with my mandated scheduling rules, it allows and even encourages teams to schedule game against former conference foes that may no longer be.  Here is how scheduling would work.

SCHEDULING:
Each school would play 12 regular season games and have 1 BYE week.

Each school would play their entire conference (9 games).

Each school would play 3 non-conference games.
* Power Conference schools cannot play any FCS teams as part of their non-conference schedule.
* All Power Conference teams must schedule at least 1 games against another Power Conference opponent.
* Scheduling FCS schools for Minor Conferences schools is not mandatory, but permitted.
* Limit of 1 FCS school per season for Minor Conference schools.
* Minor Conference schools must schedule at least 1 game against a Power Conference opponent if they want to be eligible for post season play.

PRESEASON:
Power Conference schools CAN play FCS teams as a preseason game.  These games are optional and must be played the Saturday before the season starts.  These games count as preseason camp, so teams do not get extra time in camp if they play a preseason game.  Ticket prices from these games are dictated by the home teams, however the FCS school gets an even 50/50 split of ALL revenue intake from that game.

PLAYOFF:
12-team playoff.
8 Power Conference champions get automatic bids, 4 at-large bids (Top ranked Minor Conference winner is guaranteed a playoff spot.)
Selection committee seeds the playoff brackets and selects the remaining 3 at-large teams.
Top 4 teams get BYES

SCHEDULE LAYOUT: (1^st Saturday of the season would always be over Labor Day weekend)
13 Week regular season, no conference championship games.
WEEK 14 – Playoffs/Bowl Selection Show + Army vs Navy (No other games)
WEEK 15 – OPENING ROUND PLAYOFF GAMES (4 games) (At HOME of better seeded team)
WEEK 16 – Lower Tier Bowls + 2^nd ROUND PLAYOFF GAMES (4 games) (4 regional sites)
WEEK 17 – Mid Tier Bowls + SEMIFINALS (2 games)
WEEK 18 – Top Tier Bowls
WEEK 19 – NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

With this schedule, the season would still end on the exact same date that it is currently scheduled to end on with the 4-Team Playoff.

Part 2 of my College Football Fix: The Bowl System will be coming later this week.