I believe there are few people
left who wouldn't agree with the following statement: something needs to change in college football.
Now, we can argue until we're blue in the face about the what-ifs and propose theories for a college football playoff system as the majority of college football fans have been doing since the BCS came into existence and even before, but we'd be saying the same things we said last year, and the year before, and the year before...
There are many things we can't change about college football, but let us speak of two things that can be changed that will quite easily make the game better.
This year, I'd like to propose something simple to begin with: a standard number of games played by every team in NCAA Division I football.
It continually gets overlooked, but is it really fair to the record books that in a four-year college football career, one player may play up to 8 games more than another player? I don't think so. The answer is simple. Each team plays 12 games of a regular season and any championship games or bowl games are not counted toward their career statistics, but counted as playoff statistics (like all professional sports are so good at doing), so that no player can ever record more than 48 games of college football. It wouldn't even be difficult to go backward and have this rule apply to previous seasons.
This season was truly an anomaly showcasing five undefeated teams, three of them from so-called power conferences. In previous seasons, fans have been forced to argue about which one-loss team should be in the national championship and occasionally if a two-loss power conference team should be ranked higher than an undefeated Hawaii, Utah, or Boise State. I prefer the previous arguments.
Is there a way to look at these five undefeated teams and give them any sort of fair shake in which bowl games they get to play in? No, not entirely. Even if you tried to make a playoff, you'd never be able to make it big enough to include all teams with a claim to being the best team and small enough to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
The selection of those 4, 8, 16, or 32 teams for a playoff would be just as subjective and just as arguable as the current system. Any playoff system would have to change and be re-arranged with every season to be anywhere close to effective.
For instance this season, what would you do? I'd argue for a six-team playoff this season with the five undefeated teams along with Florida giving Alabama and Texas a bye, but even that isn't completely fair because deciding who gets the bye is subjective and who gets the sixth spot is subjective. I think it would be the best way for this particular season, but it is not even close to perfect. Only three of the six power conferences are represented.
So my second very simple proposal is as follows: if a team ends the season undefeated and wins its bowl game, whether it be the BCS Championship Game, another BCS bowl game, or even a non-BCS bowl game, they should be rewarded in money just as the BCS champion is awarded and that figure should be higher than a non-undefeated team winning a similar bowl game.
What that means is that even if the BCS decides that a hypothetical 12-1 Florida should play a hypothetical 12-1 Texas in the BCS Championship Game next season and there is a hypothetical 13-0 Boise State that wins its bowl game over a hypothetical 10-2 Ohio State, Boise State should receive more money for their win than whoever wins the actual championship game.
No, of course it isn't perfect, but it provides some sense of evenness between teams that go undefeated, which is an accomplishment I believe worth rewarding whether you are from the WAC, Mountain West, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, or any other conference.
Money is a simple way to level the playing field in the slightest bit since there is no apparent way to level the playing field when it comes to glory.
In the end, yes, college football is unfixable in that it will never be perfect. It will never please everyone. That is impossible. There are still measures that can be taken, however, that are simple and would improve the game.
Yet we should be thankful that the BCS has at the very least granted us five very enticing bowl games this year. It will be interesting to see if three teams will be able to lay claim to some portion of the imaginary title of "champion."
