How To Fix NCAA Football

So the NCAA finally listened too me. Starting in 2014 we will have a playoff! Not saying they read my hub and listened to me. Either way i'm glad that I was right.

There is a problem in college football. The best teams don't always get to play for the national title. This year 2007-2008 you could have made the argument that USC, Oklahoma, Georgia were all good enough to beat either team in the BCS Championship game. I believe there are a couple of options that could lead to a true champion.

Really here there are a couple of things that could happen. One we have just a plus one system where the top 4 teams play for the championship. Here is out if could have played out this year. The top 4 teams were:

1. Ohio State

2. LSU

3. Virginia Tech

4. Oklahoma

So Ohio State and Oklahoma would have played and then LSU and Virginia Tech would have played. The winner of those two games would have been playing January 7 for the championship. Let's say the outcome still put Ohio State and LSU in the final. There would be less talk of how Ohio didn't deserve to be there after they got ran over by LSU. The first round games could be bowl games, so teams are not only playing for the chance to play in a championship game but also to be a Bowl Champion. Really this sub-option is really playing out the bowls and then having the top two teams play it out.

The other suggested option for playing it out is to include the top 8 teams. This year there was clearly a difference in BCS average between team 8 (Kansas) and team 9 (West Virginia). You're always going to leave someone out, but this would leave less teams feeling like they got left out. So we would take the top 8 teams which were:

1. Ohio State

2. LSU

3. Virginia Tech

4. Oklahoma

5. Georgia

6. Missouri

7. USC

8. Kansas

We would use the same method for the first round games: Ohio State would play Kansas, LSU and USC (that would be a great game), Virginia Tech and Missouri, Oklahoma would play Georgia. We would just do the winners then would play until there are just two teams left and we have a championship. This year alone we could have the possibility of seeing these second round games.

Ohio State v's Oklahoma

Ohio State v's Georgia

Oklahoma v's Kansas

Georgia v's Kansas

LSU v's Virginia Tech

LSU v's Missouri

Virginia Tech v's USC

Missouri v's USC

A couple of those are very good match ups and would score high in the ratings and be good money makers.

Either way, including 8 teams or only 4, playing it out makes the most sense to me. I would watch every game, as would most college football fans. Most of the games could be played before Christmas or the New Year and the final could be played the same day it's currently played. More people would watch and the $$ for the sponsors would be greater.

Ok so this really isn't a second option, but really just an enhancement that should be made. I really see two things that need to be thrown in. The first is strength of Schedule. No more playing Sub division teams or D-2 teams. Playing better teams in your non conference Schedule should be a part of it. Now let me put this into the formula. Conference games should not be part of the strength of schedule formula. It's a requirement to play in your conference, so it your conference sucks then you would be penalized (a team like Ohio State would suffer because of its conference). It could create some big cross country rivalries. Can you imagine if USC played LSU every other year, or played Florida, or both! The whole country would watch, but instead early in the season we get to see USC crush Idaho.

There other thing we should throw into the equation is bonus points for being a conference champion. Yes even Hawaii and BYU would get bonus points for winning there mid-major conferences. While this might not swing things to much I think is would make the BCS a Championship Series. Remember in the basketball tourney, the conference champions get in, even the little schools from small conferences.

Really none of this is going to happen anytime soon. The big schools and big conferences are the ones that win, and the small schools get left out. It's all about the money, although I think there would be more money to go around and to be had with a playoff system. Until the networks and the big schools realize this non of this will happen, and we are stuck with Ohio State getting blown out in BSC Championship games.

Recently NCAA president Myles Brand said,However, even with the clamor for change in the media and general public reaching a fever pitch after a season filled with upsets and uncertainty, television ratings for ESPN and CBS were the highest since 1999, and attendance at major-college football games increased for the 11th-consecutive year.

Certainly, the media is unhappy and a number of the avid fans are unhappy, and they express it," Brand told the paper. "But their unhappiness is not translating to a lack of interest. So I don't think it's as major a problem as some people think it is."

Don't expect to see much in the way of changes to our current system.

This morning the president of the University of Georgia came out in favor of an 8 team play off the link to the article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3186232