Confessions of a College Football Semi-Fan

I’m not a huge College Football fan.  I didn’t go to a big school.  (In fact, it wasn’t even a club sport until the year I graduated.  But I digress…) Right now, I’m flipping back and forth between the AT&T Cotton Bowl, the Capital One Bowl, and the Toyota Gator Bowl.  I include the full name because, well, they paid for it.  But that’s just the point.  These sponsors and alumni have to be the only ones who really care about these bowl games.  The sponsors get viewership from college football junkies who need their fix, no matter what the match up.  The schools get the ridiculous sponsorship money for their endowment, regardless of the score.  And the players and alumni get the pride of playing in the game.  But at the end of season, who cares?  Who really cares that Alabama just won the AT&T Cotton Bowl, other than the players?  Does it really help recruiting at Wisconsin to proclaim on their website “Capital One Bowl Champion”?  The Bowl Championship Series is the problem.  One game matters now.  Trust me, I get it.  I’m not naive.  It’s all about the money.  But what’s getting lost is the fact that there is soooooooooooooooooo much more money to be made.  Maybe it’s simplistic, but college football needs a playoff.  Playoffs improve the quality of the games, the television ratings, and with both in hand –  more money for all.

Actually, there’s already a playoff system in place, but with only two teams.  This year, the B(C)S got those two teams right, but it wasn’t that hard.  Last year should have been the year to get something done. Basically, the B(C)S had the opportunity to nail two of Charlie’s Angels and decided that undefeated Auburn was Kate Jackson.  (All the stats are there, but how can you argue with the other two?)  If a computer and a straw poll told people which two teams would be playing in the Super Bowl, there would be riots.  Marching in the streets.  Seattle griping about West Coast bias, settling for the Nissan Pathfinder Bowl against the New York Giants because its better for TV ratings.  Imagine Duke and UCONN playing for the NCAA Basketball Championship every year, while UNC and Arizona play in the Citibank Hoops Classic and Illinois and Gonzaga play in the Google.com Hardcourt Challenge.  All the while, Oklahoma and Indiana bitch and moan because they were left out of a Basketball Championship Series berth.  

The B(C)S doesn’t even use their own system.  How can you have standings 10-12 deep, then have two teams that aren’t in those standings play in the B(C)S Bowls?  ABC just put up the B(C)S Standings, telling me that Oregon is number 6, but won’t be playing in a B(C)S bowl.  However, ABC would like me to watch West Virginia later and Florida State tomorrow, neither of which were in the standings they just showed.  Tell me how rewarding semi-decent teams with automatic conference bids gets the best programs in, what we’re told, are the biggest games.  If you have the top 8 teams going at it, then it’s the best of the best.  (And no bitching allowed – if you can’t get in the top eight, you shouldn’t be there.)  Playoffs produce the best programs in the biggest games.

I don’t really watch any of these 5,000 bowl games, but if there’s a playoff, I’m not missing a game.  That’s the milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard.  People want to watch the drama unfold on the field, not in a studio during the B(C)S selection show.  It’s the quintessential men’s reality show.  It’s time to use this evil reality show phenomenon for good.  (Can you hear me Fox?  Skating with Celebrities?  Are you kidding me?  Todd Bridges?  Just call it the Second-Quarter-In-The-15-Minutes-Of-Fame-Meter On Ice.  Here endeth the lesson.)

College football playoff games would equal an automatic hugungous ratings monster, no matter who is in it.  (That’s right – huge and humongous.  It’s that big.)  You never hear the NFL complain that a major market team isn’t in the Super bowl so they won’t get the really big ratings.  Same with March Madness.   Again, it’s the playoffs that attract the attention.  The action on the field brings in the ratings.

With better games and more viewership, the B(C)S would be a virtual mint.  Seven games, each with more unbelievable potential than the last.  Picture it, seven glorious games.  And here’s how you do it:

*    Use the current BCS system, with more emphasis on strength of schedule, to determine the top eight teams.  
*    Use four of these useless bowl games as the opening round (i.e. Sugar, Gator, Cotton, and Capital One).  Then two for the semis and one final mack daddy.  (Rotate the current top 4 B(C)S Bowls, or for that matter, just use the Rose, Orange and Fiesta as the top 3, because, well, I never thought much of the Sugar Bowl.)
*    Schedule the games in the weeks leading up to New Years.  The time is there, as the NFL schedules Saturday games in the absence of college football in December.  

That’s it.  Three steps.   As Robert Blake would say, “Tell me where’s the downside.  You tell me where’s the downside.”  The Bowl Championship Series would actually be a series.  Everyone gets a bigger slice of the pie, because there’s more pie.  The top schools are happy because they have the chance at multiple bowls and therefore more money.  The networks happily pay up because there’s more viewers (like me) since they know they can strike it huge from sponsorship deals.  The sponsors are giddy because they’ll be hawking their wares to an even bigger audience and get their name associated with a definitive champion.  And no one is stopping any of the other bowls from happening.  All of that money is still there to be made and the current bowls won’t matter any less than they currently do.  It’s always about the money, so I appeal to members of the B(C)S and those who want to hold on to the antiquated polls.  Listen to my buddy, Diamond David Lee Roth, “You might not be able to buy happiness, but you can park your yacht right next to it.”