What college football should do?

[mrskippy]

With all of this expansion talk and the long-running call for playoffs, here is what I think college football should go about doing. There are 131 teams, that could easily be split amongst 6-8 conferences. These six to eight conferences would send their winners to the four major bowl games: Fiesta, Sugar, Rose, and Orange -- seeded accordingly. These 8 teams would play through a playoff series, culminating in a National Championship Game on the weekend between the AFC/NFC Conference Championships and the Super Bowl. A fifth bowl game could be added, allowing for two wild-card entrants. The #1 and #2 seeds in that case would get a bye week.

Basically, you end up with ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and Pac 10 (that is the six conference format). Add two more from the remainders and you have it all set. Teams would be distributed geographically into the appropriate conferences (Colorado and Utah going into the Pac 10 works for example). You basically end up with 16-24 teams conferences).

It would take some tweaks to scheduling, dividing up into two divisions and such. You might have to add one more week to the season perhaps.

Regardless, I like the expansion moves currently taking place. I would like to see the Pac 10 become the Pac 16 or even the Pac 18 or 20. Bring on the Texas teams, Boise State, and the Nevada teams. Would create one heckuva conference.

[TheRaven]

I give you credit for coming up with a radical idea, but no, I do not think this would be a good idea. Too much to share, it would dillute the product, the teams in the conferences wouldn't be able to play each other consistently, would hurt many rivalries in the game. It would create higher costs to be travelling to schools that are further away, especially if they are not good ones that never used to be in a major conference anyways. The money would not be there to justify the costs, and it would be happening on a weekly basis. It would also destroy many long lasting relationships, with schools, conferences and fans.

But again, cool idea. It was nice to see something new presented.

[Cooleyvol]

There are only 120 FBS teams at the present.

[William Satterwhite]

Ideally I'd like to see a 16-team playoff with all 11 conference champs and 5 wildcards utilizing a BCS-like formula but that would never happen for various reasons, with that said, if we can't have an all-inclusive playoff system I don't want one at all (I don't understand the logic that says a small playoff system is anymore "fair" than the BCS if your still not opening it up for everyone to have a "fair" shot at playing their way into the title game).

I think the original idea behind the old Bowl Alliance with the Big Ten and Pac 10 added to the equation is the best way to go, it removes all of the complexities of the BCS by just saying all conference champs are locked into certain bowl games but whoever ends up ranked number two gets shifted into the bowl matchup with whoever finishes number one.

I honestly think the biggest problem with the BCS is that it's too complicated for the average fan to accept so when said system produces a result that people can find fault with (whether deserved or not), people end up blaming the system. In 2003 no one had a problem with human voters saying USC and LSU were somehow better than Oklahoma just because Oklahoma lost its last game on national tv while those other schools lost in the anonymity of the middle of the season, however everyone can find fault with computer systems saying Team A is better than Team B based on the totality of each team's body of work. That's why fans like playoffs despite their inherent flaws (how often does the best team in the regular season win in the playoffs?), they're simple and clear cut.

[CBL-Commish]

I think college football should follow the MLB model: Two powerful leagues agree to an alliance to crush and subjugate all other leagues.

Over time they just become, essentially, one league. These two (or really, just one) league(s), let's call them the "SEC" and the "Big West", or "MLCF", agree to have 16 teams each. All teams left out of these leagues would be set up as minor league teams feeding players to the big leagues. Almost all of the money, prestige, power, and good players end up in the SEC and the Big West. The big leagues see all of their games televised, and all of their members go to the 16 bowl games (all other bowls are terminated). The other leagues occasionally have a game shown on the Fox Sports Southeast Missouri Network.

Over time people will just come to accept that the teams from North Carolina and Washington State and Colorado only exist to feed players to Texas, USC and Florida. And that wins and losses take a back seat to Myron Noodleman, inflatable moon bounces, and dippin' dots.