So a month ago
I proposed the idea for the IZOD IndyCar Series to go after the tech team who ran the online streaming and telemetry for the A1GP Series. The idea was so good we got a few commenters who said so, and then quite a many more on twitter saying how good they thought it was. So good, I apparently felt the need to take a month off...
In honest truth, I’ve spent a good deal of that time working on what you are about to see below… something that’s so good, I might have to take the next 3 months off… I present to you something everyone in the sports yak world has done; but then where this should excel beyond ALL others is that I took the time to use research and facts, not cloud this with opinions, thoughts of tradition, and most importantly, to not ignore any arguments one way or the other.
My friends, with much analysis below, I present to you the only acceptable post-season solution for Division I NCAA Football Championship:
Firstly, wow, I'm pumped for some of these matchups, namely LSU's defense vs. Boise St.'s offense, this would be one hell of a post-season. Secondly, before we get into arguments, let’s just start by explaining what you are seeing above. It is a postseason based ENTIRELY off of how the NCAA conducts its post-season in every other team sport.
Many may not understand, or care to, but the actual purpose of the NCAA is clear. To provide organization, management and ruling for fair and balanced competition for amateur student-athletes.
You don’t have to think hard to realize the BCS is far from anything fair or balanced, which is why the NCAA does not recognize its champion… at least for record-keepings sake. Why doesn’t the NCAA officially recognize NCAA Football champions as such? Because then it opens itself to massive lawsuits; but that’s only on an official written context, because to say the NCAA doesn’t recognize the BCS or bowl games is a total farce. They make rules that govern for it (bowl eligibility rules) and directly benefit monetarily from it; truly if the NCAA wanted to claim it didn’t recognize the BCS, the old bowl game system, and rankings; they would simply outlaw their teams from them. But let’s not waste time badmouthing the BCS or the NCAA and what they do; instead let’s tackle it with solutions, not complaints.
So if there is going to be any kind of post-season, the #1 absolute reason the BCS or old bowl system should go is its continuance of discrimination. A proper post season to any competition gives ALL participants a chance to compete and win, just like all other NCAA sports, so all we are doing is taking an NCAA approach to this by giving all 120 Division I schools a shot that they control (note how important that second part is). For our National Championship:
-Each Conference Champion Gets Auto-Bid (11 teams)
-5 At-Large teams are determined by their final BCS ranking
-Seeding is determined by BCS ranking
-Just as all other NCAA post-seasons, inner-conference matchups are avoided as possible in first round
(which is why Florida and Boise St. swapped seedings so Florida didn't have to play LSU)
-First round games are played at the higher seeds home stadium, or a neutral site of it’s own choosing (this has been done in baseball before to find stadiums/facilities to better accommodate larger crowds). Later rounds are played at pre-determined neutral sites with the championship & semi-final games rotating amongst the current 4 championship stadiums
(more options on this later)
More went into it than just these few things, and I’m sure you may already be foaming at the mouth to tell me you found a problem, so lets just dive into each of the many issues and non-issues:
SETUP
What about Notre Dame, Army & Navy?
This is an issue that is left up to the schools themselves. If they truly want to stay independent, we can simply go by the rule the BCS currently has that the highest independent school that ranks in the BCS Top 16 would qualify to take an At-Large bid.
In reality, under a system like this they will more than likely need to just join a stinking conference like the other 117 schools; or better yet, like they themselves have done in every other sport. Notre Dame almost plays a Big 10 schedule as it is, may as well go in fully AND it would give the Big 10 enough teams for a conference championship game. Personally I think Army and Navy would look great in the Big East.
It’s too many teams; (insert lower number here) is much better!
Many people out there support a “Plus 1” system, essentially a 4 team playoff. The problem there is already evident in 2009; which of the 5 undefeated teams do you leave out? If you answer anything other than: “we have no way of knowing who to pick”; you are an idiot, because there is no way to evaluate teams that have not played each other, or similar opponents, especially ones that are all undefeated. All of that aside, lets just talk facts; in order to logically give 120 schools a fair shot you need to give all conferences an auto-bid to their champions and that means 11 teams minimum. Since we all know those 11 teams won’t always (ever?) be the best 11 teams for the season, opening it up to an even 16-team tournament allows us to bring in 5 at-large teams.
Ok so how about just having 11 teams with top teams getting byes?
Some people seem to think we need byes, and I truly believe the only reason they do is because of the influence of the NFL which has byes for its top seeds. Keep in mind this not the NFL, #1 and 2 could simply have cupcake schedules, plus if those teams are truly a top seed, beating a 15 or 16 seed should be no problem right? There is no realistic way to do 1st round byes that does not discriminate by way of opinion-based rankings. Even with a 12 team bracket (with only 1 at large team) 4 teams would get a bye, again for this season which 4 get it?
Remember, the NCAA's job here is fair competition, not to emulate the NFL; just as the College World Series and March Madness accomplish fair/non-controversial-ness instead of pro-sport emulation. Any work for the sake to simply accomplish byes just seems wasteful in intent.
This will solve nothing, people still complain about being left out!
And the medicines and procedures we’ve developed in the past decade still haven’t cured cancer; but I sure as heck hope that you don’t think that means we should stop trying to cure cancer.
Sure people will complain, but if you think it will be anything close to the complaining and griping we have now, you’re crazy. If we went by this system in 2009; the first team out would be Bringham Young University; a team with two blow-out losses at home. And while BYU could certainly make a claim that they are better than Penn State (a claim I completely agree with) and a claim that they’d have a shot in a playoff (a claim I could certainly see happening) you would still have the same definitive retort you have in ALL other NCAA sports: why didn’t you win your conference?
In reality would a 2 loss BYU continue to complain after the selection process? Definitely, but only the same amount that teams who miss out on March Madness do, and teams who miss out on baseball Regionals do; and when is the last time you remember a massive conspiracy or story about one of those misses? The benefit to a playoff like this is that in the end (by the 13th and 14th ranked teams) it will all go back to them not winning games or not scheduling enough strong opponents, just like baseball, hockey, basketball, etc. (Plus on a side note: I think if our system was being used pollsters would have paid more attention and put BYU ahead of Penn State.)
I like to call this next part, the Addendum for morons like Bill Hancock who have the stupidity to say “Playoffs will ruin the regular season”:
It’s simple Bill, you and every other person who has the ultimate ignorance or stupidity (or both) to say that, need to back it up. You want to know how I know all you “regular season ruiner ” people don’t believe a word of that, because you aren’t writing a single article/comment/rant proclaiming that March Madness, College World Series, NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, NBA, WNBA etc. playoffs should be banned and taken away. You’re surely not writing articles about why you only watch the NFL playoffs because the regular season games don’t matter. What these people are always failing to mention is that they watch every week of the NFL, or that frankly they just feel that baseball’s regular season has too many games to keep their attention for 162, 82, 50 games. When looking at facts and not stupidity, lets take the only real argument the ‘ruined regular season’ has:
What about teams sitting down starters to rest for the playoffs?
Under the playoff scenario there are only a select minority of teams who even have a remote shot of doing this each year, and that chance hardly ever appears before the last game; or in the case of many, their Conference Championship! Could teams sit starters for rest? Sure. But think about this year, only 5 teams had the option to sit starters: Texas, TCU, Boise St., Alabama & Florida; and none would have had the benefit of doing it for more than their final game.
But because the playoff pool is so short and rankings determine seeding, every game still means so much, just as it does now. Under our above scenario it’s the difference between playing at home in front of your loyal fans or away in front of a hostile crowd for TCU and Boise. For Alabama/Florida/Texas it’s the difference between opening the playoffs with Troy/East Carolina or LSU/Virginia Tech/Iowa. Then there is the fact that rankings could shoot down if you blow off and lose a final game. If Texas got blown out entirely by Nebraska, who is to say that pollsters wouldn't drop them out of the Top 10? Not a very big chance? Would a team actually take that risk? Maybe it would, but when you consider money for the school, wanting to play at home, and wanting a better matchup; you can’t reason that it’s very likely… especially when the opportunity to do it is already rare.
With the BCS, every game is like a playoff game!
First - See Above, not only are all the games important, but even more games are important because 1 and 2 loss no longer eliminate teams from the #1-#2 contention, they can still fight for at-larges or conferences.
Second – tell that to undefeated Auburn 2003, undefeated Boise 2009, 2008, 2006, undefeated Utah 2008 & 2005 undefeated Cincinnati 2009, Undefeated Hawai'i 2007 or undefeated Tulane 1998.
But (non-BCS Conference team) would NEVER beat (insert team from BCS Conference) anyway, so who cares?
This is my favorite argument of them all for 2 reasons: 1) it ignores the fact that the BCS has screwed at least 3 different BCS Conference teams who deserved a title shot. 2) its where people suddenly become fortune tellers or time travelers; and not just time travelers, but ones who traveled to every possible dimension to make sure that in every possible scenario that the lower ranked team never could win. All you need to do is look at what Utah and Boise State have done in this time, clearly when any team gets motivated, they can play with and beat the big teams, and Hawai'i proved that they weren't up to the task. So what do we know? We know for absolutely sure is that we will NEVER EVER know who can beat another team unless we allow them to play each other!
DATES/TIMING:
This may actually be one of the least debatable parts of a playoff, because it has the most adjustable parts. Initially here’s what I would propose.
Fri/Sat, Dec 18/19 - Opening weekend
Sat Dec 26 - Quarterfinals
Sat, Jan 2 - Semi-finals (big games still on new years)
Mon, Jan 11 - Championship Game
Note: NFL Playoffs start Jan 9-10 this year, so that’s why Champ game moved to Monday.
Starting on a Friday?
Good gosh yes! Think about how awesome that opening Thursday is for March Madness and multiply it by a billion with people taking off work or lunches to see how the Boise St.-LSU game is going. Do you really have a problem with having another excuse to take early December vacation days?
Short rest time on bad Holiday years?
Honestly it depends on how holidays fall, for example if Christmas and New Years were on a Saturday you could shift all rounds up a day to Friday, or more likely just that 1 round and make it work. There no reason you couldn’t play on a Friday Christmas Eve that year. Even with the setup we have this year, you could even move the semifinals to New Years Day, talk about finally bringing back prestige to the New Years Bowl games. There is also the matter of whether or not they want to do this Championship thing on Thursday (like it is this year) because it can be moved to the following Monday, like above, originally was done.
Also, this schedule gives teams an off week after their conference championship games. That consolation can be removed in way of a schedule as follows:
Fri/Sat, Dec 11/12 - Opening Weekend
Sat, Dec 19 - Quarterfinals
Sat Dec 26 - Semi-Finals
*Fri, Jan 1 - Champ Game
That’s too many games, increases the chance of injury, and takes students away from class…
This isn’t a debatable issue once you realize that the FCS division already does a 16-team playoff (and is thinking of going to 20) and their student-athletes are just fine. Sorry, there’s no debate here. Also fine are the students who travel for basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball playoffs for 3+ weeks in a row, not to mention in-week travel games during their regular season. Then you can remember a very good chunk of this proposed playoff actually happens when schools are out of session. Most of all, give these guys credit, we’re talking about grown adults age 18-25, and we’re not talking about young teenagers.
PLUS the teams are ALREADY practicing for 3-4 weeks in December as it is and playing mid-week or weekend bowl games. The only difference here is 16 of those teams have the option to fly off for multiple weekends.
As for the increased chance of injury; I have no argument there, sure playing more games does increase options for injury, but so did adding a 12th game to the season and I didn’t hear a single player complain.
It’s still just too many games!
While this can cut into profits for the big football factories, we only recently added the 12th regular season game, which is a little unnecessary, and also allows .500 teams to be bowl eligible. I’m not totally for it but, if it truly was TOO many games, there’s no reason we can't just go right back to 11 regular season games. It would improve bowl games
(as there will still be bowl games outside of the playoff) in that only teams with winning records would be in them. This would also make the season end on thanksgiving weekend and then do that in conjunction with the schedule above and bowl season ends on Jan 1st, with the week off after the season still existing.
In all, the “Time-extension” haters just can’t hold up when you realize other divisions already do it just fine as do all the other sports in the NCAA.
A non-realized side-effect:
We know the TV ratings for the playoff games would be ridiculously through the roof compared to the Jimbo’s Discount Copper Bowl; but don’t forget how big and better ratings would be if Conference-USA, SEC, ACC, Big-12, MAC (and possible Big 10 if ND joins) all crowned their champions on thanksgiving weekend!
LOCATIONS:
Won’t this hurt all of the bowl games/Why home games in 1st round? Etc.
Ok obviously what we have in our original proposal above isn’t concrete. There is, in fact, a 2nd pretty easy option to implement: 15 games/15 locations Champ game rotates between current big 4 locations; see below:
What you are seeing here is an artist’s rendering of what the tournament looks like if we take away home games in the first round and replace them with more neutral site where bowl games already exist. I personally like this option more than the home game option, but I do see little… a little merit in having home games in the first round to take down a little bit of travel and to also reward higher ranked teams. That said..
Neutral Site Playoffs each week is way too much travel!
Of many issues, this is one that needs the least text because we have ginormous amount of evidence to the contrary, most namely the FCS playoffs, March Madness, NCAA baseball playoffs, NCAA Hockey playoffs… all of which require NCAA student athletes to travel each week for 3 or more consecutive weeks.
It’s too much travel for the fans! The games won’t sell tickets!
This is one of the BCS and its backer’s favorite arguments against a playoff; of which all any realist has to say: See the other NCAA Playoffs; let me know how well those are working out. You know how well they are working out? So well that each year the NCAA has to have a bidding process because of the high demand of different locations who want to host parts of the playoffs. LSU fans sent a capacity level of visiting fans to Washington this year for a regular season away game… you don’t think they’ll travel for national championship playoff games? And their repeated attempts of trying to use a measurement of how many fans travel to a meaningless bowl game to say how many would travel to witness their teams’ shot at the national championship is void because that's comparing apples to a stick of butter; they might both be football games but comparing meaningless exhibitions to playoff competition can't be done.
What about the TV coverage?
Well this one almost already sorts itself out. ABC/ESPN currently owns the right to ALL but 2 Bowl games CBS has Sun Bowl & Gator Bowl; FOX has BCS but ABC/ESPN is taking it over already. Since the BCS would suddenly be void, the playoff games go right into a bidding process, which I’m sure we all expect ESPN would win.
What about all the other teams and all the traditional Bowl Games?
Two things we can all agree on: A) bowl games already don’t mean anything. B) There are too many bowl games.
So please tell me how a playoff will hurt an abundance of meaningless exhibition? Bowl games can still be played, they, in fact, already are played as consolations in the lower divisions which have playoffs. This alone already proves we can do consolation bowl games for non-playoff teams, but I’d even submit we could afford to do a consolation playoff, just like the NIT in basketball. The consolation tournament or consolation bowl games can be played any day of the week on Sunday-Thursday to not conflict with the main tournament, mostly so they don’t get horrible ratings when the playoff would dominate them.
The other hopeful added side-effect, is that we reduce the number of teams who have a post-season. I love the school because they are in conference with my alma mater, but Marshall has no business playing a post-season game at 6-6. There are too many bowl games, but do you know why there are too many bowl games? Money.
Those smaller schools should just play better schedules!
Really, anyone who says this is truly a moron. We all know this isn’t viable with 120 schools nor is it viable when the big schools refuse to play the smaller contenders. Just ask Boise State who is currently trying to fill a 1 game void on next year’s schedule and is willing to visit ANY school without that school coming back to Boise, and they can’t get the deal done.
When I was at Southern Mississippi (I also went to LSU so you know I'm not just an angry non-BCS person) as a student I watched endless amounts of school refuse to play them. It became such a public issue at the time and got so bad someone even
made a website to list all the schools that refused to play the Golden Eagles. This list is slightly out of date by 1 or 2 teams since it was compiled in 2001 (namely Virginia Tech finally gave USM a game and MSU has finally decided to restore the in-state rivaly). But the fact is, ALL of the potential contender non-BCS teams have lists like this because once they get halfway decent no BCS contender wants to schedule a possible upset loss. Hell Boise state can't even get a BCS school agree to let Boise visit them next year without asking for a visit back.
The only way this argument could ever be valid is if 2 rules got added by the NCAA.
A) All agreements for football regular season matchups must include a fair share of home games meaning Florida would have to agree to go to Louisiana Monroe in addition to having them come to The Swamp.
B) Division I schools would no longer be allowed to play schools in other divisions, meaning all you BCS powers need to stay within the division for your warm up games. We both know these 2 things aren’t happening as long as money is involved, so give up on telling small schools to get better schedules when they have little to no control over it.
Those players/fans should just pick bigger schools!
Yes let’s destroy the athletic programs of 54 schools in place of fixing a simple problem. This is not to mention that we’re talking about a sport, which is supposed to be secondary to the schooling. Let me know what school a kid growing up in Salt Lake City should do? He has many great universities around him, but he doesn’t have a BCS school, so my good student, you need to abandon your family and scholarships to the smaller school and head to a “real school”; and that’s assuming you can get into their program since the 4,000+ other non BCS athletes will also now be trying to get into the 6 BCS conferences. Let’s not destroy the athletic programs of 54 schools and 4,000+ athletes, ok.
Bowl games are tradition! We can’t break tradition! TRADITION!!!!
This “argument” majorly comes from Pac-10 and Big-10 enthusiasts who seem to be under some ridiculous hypnotic spell that makes them think other people aside from them give a crap about the Rose Bowl. You know how many times I’ve watched the Rose Bowl parade: 0. Yes I realize there are people out there who do watch it, and people who love the Rose Bowl... and good for them, really I mean that. But I’m not saying you have to throw the Rose Bowl away, it can still exist in many ways; you can call whatever playoff game done at the Rose Bowl the Rose Bowl, and give it the parade. You can have a Rose Bowl game and parade outside of the playoff and still invite a Pac-10 and Big-10 team to play in it. But don’t ruin things for other people so you can have “tradition.”
You know what happens when you mess with traditions that need re-working. Nothing in general but positive reactions. The College World Series/playoffs have changed/tweaked its format almost 5 times in the past 2 decades, and all it’s produced is happier fans, players and one of the fairest and most riveting competitions in college sports, with ratings still on the rise.
No one sure is complaining about the merging of the AFL and NFL, or when it added games, or added more wild cards, no one is complaining that the NHL drastically changed its overtime regular season rules or the off-sides and obstruction rules. Mixed Martial Arts changed themselves from their tradition of no rules brutal-ness to tons of rules and are now one of the most popular sports on the planet. You know which sport is keeping all its traditions? Boxing… let me know how that’s going for them… if you can find it these days.
You know what else was tradition? Slavery, women not having rights, land-line telephones, the telegraph; 4-track recording studios and candles as a source of light. So lets cut the crap about “tradition” because using “that’s the way we always did it” is NEVER justification for reasonable decision making; when you have better options.
I can assume by your reading this that you are using modern-ish day technology, at least in the form of a computer or a printer that printed this out; and not having gotten a copy of this transcribed by a calligrapher onto papyrus, so why in the heck are you willing to subject yourself to a half century old post-season for football (opinion based rankings)? We use computers, women can vote, we attempt to give all people equal rights, why on earth would we choose to publicly discriminate against 54! Division I schools by giving them less than equal treatment and less than their equal share?
But the BCS already divides its money up, whats the issue?
Lets go back to why Marshall is taking its 6-6 team to the Little Caesars Bowl in Detroit, Michigan.
Let me repeat that, Marshall is taking a 6-6 football team 400 miles to Detroit, Michigan to play an exhibition against a 9-4 Ohio Bobcats team (a team that is located a mere 60 miles away) … IN DETROIT!
Its money people, if Marshall doesn’t play that bowl game they don’t get money for their athletics. Why don’t they get money? Because the BCS is hoarding the money by discrimination against the smaller 54 non-BCS schools. Last year the 0-12 Washington Huskies made just as much, and some have reported more, than the undefeated Utah Utes. Think about that for a second, and then tell me why you think Marshall is going to frozen Detroit in the dead of winter to play an exhibition against Ohio. Prestige? Tradition? High Level of Fan Request? It’s because the BCS isn’t giving the smaller conferences an even share of the money created by the BCS.
This system will still be unfair because of polls!
I agree. I simply say this is the fairest start because just as in all other NCAA sports, the big conferences will dominate the At-Large bids, and that makes sense on the schedule strength issue, at least until you can mandate home-and-home agreements, but as I said, what would you rather have? A completely broken system, or a system that needs a few tweaks? Again we’re talking about debating Penn State vs. BYU instead of debating leaving out Cincinnati, TCU & Boise State entirely from a chance.
Playoff or not, one thing is for sure, the USA Today Coaches Poll NEEDS to go.
Not only is it a ridiculous conflict of interest to allow participants to openly rig the outcome (just
check the final poll for 2009, where you can easily see some coaches had some clear agenda to advance their team or inner conference teams) , but no coach EVER has business putting together a ranking of teams that he in no humanly way possibly had a chance to witness and judge. In fact no human has business ranking teams if it affects the post-season. The BCS computers are the ONLY ones that ever seem to be doing what rankings are supposed to be: ranking teams based on how they have performed; instead of guessing who you think could beat another team in a hypothetical matchup.
People will just want to add more teams!
To people who say this I ask… what’s your point? Right now we have a ridiculous amount of bowl games and no one seems to be complaining? And while I wouldn’t support more than a 16-team playoff, it’s a tweaking debate, not an end-all debate. I agree I don’t want a whole ton of teams getting into the playoff, because playoffs are supposed to reward only those who had good seasons, but the debate between 16 or 32 teams is one I could much better live with either result than discrimination vs. fairness.
Why does it matter if the NCAA doesn't officially recognize the BCS's winner as National Champion?
Because as we've stated many times, this isn't about records at all its about money and opportunity being shielded from 54 schools' players, athletic departments & fans.
(More on this Below)
It’s just football!/who cares!/The government has no business in this!
I agree that the government should not be regulating football, but unlike everyone who shouts the above, I realize that the government is granting my wishes, they are not touching the game or its setup. Despite popular opinion, College Football is not only a business, but it severely impacts lives. Football makes money for the NCAA and for schools which they can use to support other sports, to build stadiums, to support local economies. Why do you think all the bowl games have sponsors? Why do you think they sell shirts and apparel of the bowl games? In short: the BCS is a system set up so publicly funded institutions can block the progress and recognition of other publicly funded institutions.
It’s simple here; there are 120 Division I football teams. All 120 of the schools and players should be given an equal shot to reap the monetary and lifelong recognition of a national championship. You think it’s just football? Look up the money that gets dispersed to the conferences/schools that made it into the BCS last year. Then think about how many schools such as Tulane have considered getting rid of football all-together (pre-Katrina).
You think it’s just sports? How many of you knew who Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison was before March Madness? How many of us know friends or at least stories of people who got jobs by way of having college sports on their resume? Personally I know a guy who is now pretty high up at a national banking firm, that’s not the rare part. The part that is in this issue is that we became quite friendly over the years, and he once told me how his entire original interview 10+ years ago to get into the company never involved a single word about his qualifications, but instead involved the interviewer asking about his playing center for a big SEC school during a very significant bowl game. (For obvious reasons I’m not naming him or the company, sorry).
The simple fact of the matter is that he doesn’t get that ease of opportunity had he gone to a random Sun-Belt school. Sure people get added recognition in many ways, but the amount of recognition the BCS games get is beyond a small measurement. Imagine how much you know about Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy right now because they are constantly in the national scene. Now think about this, who is the top running back in college football over the past 4 seasons? Anyone? Bueller? Why it’s none other than University of Southern Mississippi’s Damien Fletcher. Why don’t you know that? Because the main media covering college football doesn’t care to give much time to things that don’t impact the national scene.
Now imagine if smaller schools got their shot, imagine if they made a run; all of a sudden they’ve gone from the Boudreaux’s Butt Paste Bowl to national recognition of their name, not only by NFL scouts
(who would much love the benefit of seeing how players fare in a pressure playoff scenario) but for a nation full of potential employers for the student-athletes who don’t go on to the NFL.
Just football this is not.
Also what people who shout about the government need to do is
read the bill being proposed. It doesn’t in a single way tell the NCAA/BCS what to do for a post season, it’s not “Big Brother.” It simply tells the NCAA/BCS that they cannot call a discriminatory driven system equal and call it a national championship.
It’s the same thing the government does to monopolies, it says "figure something else out", because what you are currently doing is illegal. It’s the same as breaking up a monopoly, you don’t tell the monopoly how to runs its business, you just tell them to do something else and let them figure out how to split up tasks. In this case they’re saying to the NCAA, you can’t do the BCS AND call it a National Championship, and then they’re letting the NCAA/BCS figure out the solution, they can do a playoff and call it a national championship or they can do bowl games and call them bowl games, pretty simple…
The results?
I’m pretty sure the Sun/Holiday/Independence/Cotton/Etc. Bowl and everyone else including the cities and their economies that could benefit from this would much rather the almost certain to sellout games rather than the Bily Joe's Car Repair Bowl. The athletes would certainly like a proper chance to prove they are the best by beating the other good teams rather than using polls, in reality the only people who stand to lose in this switch are the specific administrators and schools who get rich by keeping the money in their own pockets by keeping it unfairly away from the other schools.
My friends, this is not Just Football. This is about letting students, fans, and impressionable children know/learn that everyone should get the fairest treatment when possible.
We don’t tell people they aren’t allowed to try for any goal they have in life, so
why are we ok with telling 4,000+ student-athletes and their millions of fans: “We’re sorry you chose the wrong school, you aren’t allowed to compete for the national championship.”?
Firstly Note: Do you have a question or issue we haven’t addressed? And Secondly: is that issue actually realistic and relevant? Then Thirldly: post it here and we’ll ammend it to this list of things.
Most Importantly: Pass this article to anyone who cares about this issue. Poke holes in what we say. If anyone is ever going to truly conclude anything about NCAA football, we need to address any and all issues, and we need those issues to comment in. It should also be passed to anyone who believes any of the "roadblocks" we addressed are in fact roadblocks so we can hopefully make them think more about it. We're not pretending we're the smartest people in the world, but that's why we're passionate about this... Because we're not the smartest people in the world and even we can see that this is the only reasonable solution for a National Championship.
10. No Limits!
t Catamounts say goodbye to baseball and softball
4. Blog-a-thon!
2. Saints start 13-0
