You're the Dictator of College Football. What do you change?
Recently, multiple sports radio personalities have expressed concern about the future of college football due to the growing regionalization of the sport. We’re now heading towards our fifth straight year of having 2 of Alabama, Georgia or Clemson being in the national championship game which is obviously unhealthy for the sport. Below is a few ideas that I’ve heard and think would be ideal but I'd like to hear others' thoughts and ideas:
- Further Conference Realignment
- The Big 12 needs to be split up with each respective school being absorbed into the remaining Power 5 conferences and Group of 5 Conferences creating a Power 4 (16 teams each) and a Group of 5.
Big 10 Adds: Kansas & Kansas St
Pac 12 Adds: Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma & Oklahoma St.
SEC Adds: TCU & Baylor
ACC Adds: West Virginia
G5 Adds: Iowa State
- Scheduling
- Power 4 conferences must be matched up with each other on a rotating schedule. Ie. Year 1: Big 10 vs SEC, ACC vs Pac 12. Year 2: Big 10 vs Pac 12, SEC vs ACC. Year 3: Big 10 vs ACC, SEC vs Pac 12.
- Each Power 4 teams should be required to play one home game and one away game against their conference matchup every year.
- Playoff Expansion / Changes
- CFP should expand to 8 teams. Power 4 Conference Champions get automatic bids. Highest ranked G5 team gets auto bid. 3 at-large bids put in by CFP Committee. 3 at-large can come from any conference.
- CFP Committee ranks playoffs teams as they do now, however, Power 4 Champions must be ranked 1-4. G5 team and at-large teams are ranked 5-8. First round games are at the higher seed’s home field.
- Scholarship Changes
- Reduce scholarship allotment from 85 to 75.
I'd remove targeting first and foremost.
I'd also remove the rule of the clock stopping after every first down. 3 hour CFB games are rare when 4 hour CFB games are the norm.
I would then remove the sideline reporter interviews of the head coaches before kickoff and at halftime. Is there anything more painful than watching that shit?
Injuries, particularly head trauma, continue to increase, even with new targeting rules. So, instead of eliminating targeting, I would eliminate players. Have the head coaches meet at midfield in front of two computers and play whatever the college version of Madden football is.
The game could be broadcast on the jumbotrons in the stadium and we would get 115,000 fans to watch Harbaugh mash Kelly, Mork, Day, and Frames Janklin on an annual basis.
I don't know who these personalities are. "Growing regionalization" seems absurd to me. The sport is more national than it has ever been. Gone are the days where there was one game on tv a week and you had to listen to your local team on the radio or see them in person; gone, too, is the classic ABC regional 3:30 package where you watched the game in your area and occasionally there was a big national game on at noon, with smaller stuff shunted to ESPN. Gone are the days where you could spend $120 to get the college football all-access on satellite to watch all the games.
Now most of the big games are broadcast nationally either on network or on cable. Everyone knows what every team is doing and how good they are. A fan of Michigan in (picking a place COMPLETELY at random) Duluth Minnesota can watch every single one of his team's games from the comfort of his home. And he can flip channels and watch Texas or USC as well.
What is happening is not "regionalization." It is a growing competitive imbalance centered in one region, the South. There are three reasons for this: 1. Regional talent distribution; 2. Fanbase/athletic department commitment; 3. Cheating.
Talent distribution is to say that most of the best football talent is concentrated in warm-weather states. There are just more good players, which means more teams can get good players to play on their teams.
Fanbase and department commitment drives the over-the-table money. This helps explain issues that teams on the West Coast are having (there's a lot of talent in California) right now. Programs like USC are quite capable of being national powers, but due to athletic department chaos and poor coaching hires, they are underperforming. A fanbase as fanatical as LSU's fires athletic directors for things that USC tolerates every year these days. Georgia throws a very successful coach in Mark Richt overboard to get a guy who can put them on part with Alabama while UCLA squeezes out a few years with Karl Dorrell. Etc.
Cheating, of course, happens in a lot of places, but its under-the-table nature means that even assuming all programs cheat (let's just assume that this is the case in the SEC, for example) not all of them cheat with equal efficiency, and it is impossible to objectively evaluate which is doing it the best.
This is getting really long. So I'm going to post this as my gripe, and make a second post for the "if I were dictator" bit.
Continuing on: what would I do if I were a dictator?
Well, the only thing that can really deal with the competitive imbalance is to change the monetary structure, which I would do by releasing NIL rights to players. Let the Bama guys endorse that Dodge dealership they all drive fancy cars from anyway. And let Michigan guys endorse car dealerships in Metro Detroit, and Ohio State guys do endorsements in Columbus and stuff. Things like that. There will still be imbalances, but they might even out a bit, and it will at least be easier to understand why some teams are more successful than others (we may not like that the Red Sox and Yankees always have more money to pay in baseball, but at least we understand it).
A bigger deal, to me, is the future of the sport. There a lot of small issues one could work on (replay, conferences, etc), but for me, there are two major issues of serious concern: 1. Declining fan attendance; 2. Player safety.
To deal with #1, I would focus on increasing the ROI for fans attending games. It's no secret that people are a lot more inclined to watch games from home than before. Some of those convenience issues aren't easy to fix. But two issues are: ticket prices and connectivity. Ticket prices are downstream of the insatiable desires of athletic departments to make extra cash, so that may need to be a focus, but whatever can get ticket prices down to a neighborhood where middle class people can reasonably afford season tickets, and virtually anyone with disposable income can afford to attend at least a game a season, is a huge deal. Connectivity is spoken of a lot, but I think it's just good sense in today's generation to invoke whatever technological improvements are necessary for 100,000 people to be able to check twitter or facebook while in the stadium, particularly since many will actually be doing so to talk about and learn more about the game they are watching.
To deal with #2, I believe we need to equip every player with real-time sensors to produce and then act on data of the forces involved in collisions. It's not enough to see a bad hit; we need to start detecting every hit, know when it's bad, know which hits cause damage, and then start legislating certain types of contact completely out of the game.
It is becoming increasingly clear that football's violence causes problems for a significant number of players who have college and pro careers. Many of the health problems that have been publicly revealed occur in players who played before today's bigger-faster-stronger era (probably PED-inflated) era. Things will probably get worse before they get better.
To take half-steps is potentially suicidal to the sport.
I'm guessing your sermons get rather long winded on Sunday mornings.
Regarding the attendance issues. I think there are two different issues and it's not caused by fans simply wanting to watch the game at home.
1) At the tier of schools like Michigan, OSU. PSU. Alabama, Texas, etc attendance isn't down because of adults, it's down because of students. Go back through the threads and see how often the empty seat pictures are of the student section. To address this issue, you have to integrate the players back in to the common academic population. Athletes live in athlete dorms, eat at athlete dinning centers, take athlete courses, and work out and practice at the athlete facilities which are often separate from the rest of campus. Why should any regular student care about attending a football or basketball game made of anonymous people they never interact with? There will be more student interest when the athlete population intermingles with the other students on a regular basis.
2) The other tier of schools like Purdue, UCLA, MSU, Missouri, etc. These are the types of programs which often have large sections of the stadium empty in most games. The problem for these teams is that they operate like the big teams: play poor schedules, have expensive prices, invest in athletic facilities and programs which separate students from athletes, dick around with game times all to get on TV, etc. You can't operate this way and expect a fan base to keep showing up for yet another 7-5 season with a max out at 9-3 periodically. They have to use their revenue to keep the game affordable for the local fans and alumni to keep their stadiums full. Sadly, TV audience seems to be their focus instead of filled seats.
These are some valid points.
I'm not sure that it has ever been realistic for there to be that much interaction between a few dozen players and a 40,000 student population. Also, I think there's some complexity here with student life habits on weekends and stuff. I went to the Michigan-Wisconsin game in Madison in 17. Huge game, biggest home game Wisconsin had played in years, the whole school was hyped for it... and there were thousands of empty seats in the student section well into the second quarter.
That's not because they're not engaged. That's because they're doing something else.
I think making the "event" worth attending is an important part of the deal. When students don't want to miss a game against, say, Northwestern because the event is awesome (that's how a lot of us have felt in our "attend every game" days) you get better attendance. But when it's a bother to get up early and walk to the stadium for a couple hours of RAWK and a blowout, you get empties.
But I disagree that student attendance is the main issue. Football programs across the country, including Alabama, are seeing reported attendance issues. These are schools that count tickets sold to students that are unused as people in attendance, but they're having trouble selling tickets to everyone else. Student attendance is a VISIBLE issue, but the big problem is that places like Florida and Alabama can't sell 5-10,000 "cheaper" seats on a single game basis. That Michigan continues to virtually sell out every game is a testament to our dedicated fanbase, but don't think we won't suffer the same problems that everyone else is having. It's full-price tickets that are starting to go unsold.
Want students to start attending games? Sell beer at the stadium and move every game to 3:30 or later. Also cut down on the TV timeouts to make the game go by quicker.
Columbus guys could do endorsements for coolers from sporting goods stores and what not.
Yea, like already stated, I’d make 4 major conferences with 16 teams each.
Conference winners go to playoffs along with 2 at large and 2 from “minor conferences”
I’d also either make it a total free for all, or do the exact opposite and crack down massively on bag men, steroids etc .... get caught? 3 year playoff ban. Second time? 5 year playoff ban. Third time? Relegated to lower tier conferences with ban still in place. None of this bs that Saban, Dabo et al get away with
Finally, eliminate Pedo States program. Put MSU and Baylor (and anyone else who fails to monitor these goddam assaults) on 5 year probation .... any more Tom foolery and they don’t have a program either
I would start the season in January to force the SEC to play in cold weather.
If I get really pissed off, I might even make them merge with the Big Ten to make sure I get to see Saban lose on the road in Bloomington in a polar vortex.
8 team tourney, 5 autobids, 3 wildcards.
Give me that and I'm happy.
I was on the "regular season is a playoff" boat for a long time, and I still kind of am, but a playoff with an autobid for the major conference champion still leaves the conference season in this kind of boat, and I'm in favor of it. I think an autobid needs to be reserved for a "highest ranking undefeated group-of-5 team" as a salve for those teams if they remain in the same division, which I'm fine with. It would invariably be the lowest seeded team and drawing them would be a suitable reward for the top-ranked team in the country.
I'm with you as long as the conference champions are ranked in the top 16 or 20. Northwestern has been close to representing the Big Ten East in the championship game with a .500 record. If they went on to win the Big Ten, they are still not deserving of the playoffs in this hypothetical world.
Eliminate neutral site games between power conference teams. Only home and homes.
Play off line up to 8 teams.
Play off games should be played at home for the higher ranked team.
I don't like the idea of four power conferences, teams won't play each other enough I just think that's bad for college football.
I would leave it at five power conferences Big 12 needs to add a couple teams there's plenty to choose from they just need to do it
Increase the playoffs to 8, the winner of each power conference and three at-large very simple if they're willing to do it. By making it the winner of each conference it doesn't matter if you lose a game early or have two losses but then figure it out and play great towards the end of the season and look like one of the best teams in the country with a chance to win it all I'll use Michigan's 1980 season as an example I thought we were the best team in the country by the end of the year but we lost two early games and finished 10-2, nobody wanted to play us at the end of that year.
1. Notre Dame has to join a conference or sit out the playoff.
2. The Big 12 either plays defense or sits out the playoff.
3. The SEC cannot have more than one team in the playoff until they prove someone other than Alabama can actually win it.
4. The game switches to NFL timing rules with the exception of the stoppage after a first down and 85% of the Chevy truck commercials need to remove so the game can be played in 3 hours
5. Nobody in the Pac-12 (looking at you Oregon) can talk smack until they can beat a power 5 team without the express help of Pac-12 officials.
6. Clemson gets drug tested by a real doping authority and proves that at least 5 players on their team can actually read.
7. If you run the triple option, you have to travel by train to the games, wear leather helmets, and your scholarship money is pro-rated to 1940s dollars since your program is playing in that era.
8. If your coeds come to games in sweaters and no bras, your team is automatically awarded 14 points and the ball to start the game.
9. If you try to plant a flag at mid-field in a stadium with astroturf, you must live the rest of your life wearing a foam helmet with chin strap.
7. No hippies ANYWHERE near a stadium. Hippies suck ass in every galaxy...
I'd throw in SEC has to win 1 game in temperatures below 40 degrees in order to make the playoff.
Can we extend the hippy rule to other public spaces as well?
Absolutely...
"8. If your coeds come to games in sweaters and no bras, your team is automatically awarded 14 points and the ball to start the game."
Well that's a super gross thing to say.
that's the Columbus 'no filter' syndrome at work.
Take the P5 and create 4 conferences out of the group of 60 or so schools. Take the G5 conferences and split them off into another division that plays for another championship.
Mandate that the new P4 conferences can only play 1 other non-division team (former G5 or lower) per year.
Four new conferences each have two divisions. Those divisions face off in a similar regular season to now with certain cross over games that rotate. All four conferences have division winners that play in a championship game. That conference champ is entered into the 4 team playoff, matchups determined by average AP + Coaches poll rank. 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3.
Mandatory random lie detector tests for coaches and staff. More testing for steroids, including saving samples for future tests. Strong penalties for programs with multiple offenders.
As Big Ten dictator, a rule that the Big Ten will disband before being forced to admit Kansas State.
What's the rationale for cutting scholarships to 75? Of all the ways college football programs spend their money, that's nearly the last thing I'd ask them to cut back on. Having 1000+ fewer kids on scholarship is a big trade off for whatever perceived benefit smaller rosters could provide.
One of my dictator goals would be to elevate the Group of Five teams and conferences, if not to complete parity with the P5, at least enough to close the gap that exists now by quite a bit. One way would be to reduce scholarships so that the big teams can't hoard as many players as they do now. Maybe it's a reduction in "active rosters" or similar instead of scholarships. I haven't really thought it all through since this is a silly thought experiment, but the NFL seems to get by with much fewer players per team.
No offense, but why is that a worthwhile goal? It doesn't fit with the goal of forcing power 5 schools to play more games against each other. That's where college football is headed and what most fans want. There isn't going to be any approximate parity ever anyway. Is making Akron 3 points closer to Florida worth cutting the scholarships of ten players from each team? 7 points closer?
The NFL gets by with fewer players because they don't redshirt players who need physical development, can sign free agents whenever needed, can cut players during the season, can put injured players on the DL. They mostly have players that are proven. College rosters will always have a much larger proportion of first year players who may not be ready to contribute.
- Force conference realignment to smaller, more regional conferences. Screw this "Rutgers in the Big Ten" crap. No Colorado in the Pac-12. No Texas A&M in the SEC. Conferences would have like eight or nine teams in them.
- Implement a different approach to investigating recruiting and amateurism violations besides just asking the schools "did you do it?"
- Limit video replay to 30 seconds and elevate the standard for overturning from "preponderance of the evidence" to "fucking obvious."
I don't care how many conference games a team plays but I would prefer if there was a minimum of 10 P5 opponents each year to make comparing resumes easier.
I would want the playoff at 8 or more. I want champions of each conference to get an auto bid and the rest can be at large. Top 4 seeds get to host first round of the playoff game which keeps the regular season relevant even if a team is likely locked into a playoff spot.
Somehow I would want to implement a pod system for large conferences or figure out a way to cut conference size back down to 10-11 teams so there aren't large disparities in SOS within a conference (Wisconsin drew MSU, Mich and OSU in crossover while Nebraska gets OSU, Indiana and Maryland).
G5 should have their own playoff system at the end of the year. Maybe if there is a clear cut #1 G5 team like in 2017 they can be included in the P5 playoff. The current system is a stupid purgatory for G5 teams. Plus who wouldn't have loved to watch a playoff with UCF, Boise, App State, Fresno St, Army and Utah St last year? This also could help bridge the revenue gap lost by some G5 bodybag games if a minimum P5 vs P5 is implemented.
Pay players for their likeness (give me back NCAA football)
I'm against reducing scholarship opportunities for athletes.
Enforce penalties for pick routes.
1. I'd go to 8 - 7 team conferences(divisions), and have the first round of the playoffs take the 8 winners in bowl games. Higher ranked team would "host" in a non-campus arena. Soldier Field in December for the B1G, Maybe the new stadium in LA or Vegas for Pac schools, Dallas and Atlanta to name a few.
6 games in division, and the other 6 against teams in other conferences that finished in the same spot in their conference the prior year.
The rest of the teams would be relegated to 1-AA and have their own title. Each year 8 teams move up, bottom 8 move out. Teams that are caught cheating are relegated to serve their punishment.
2.Salary structure for the players that is uniform through out each level. Pay goes up each year of service to the current team. Transfers (except grad transfers and instances where the head coach i sno longer with the program.) start back at the bottom salary. With no negotiating, there is no need for agents. Starters get an extra 10k. Bowl game appearance 5k.
Incentives for winning bowl games, rivalry victories (maybe $1k increasing 1k for every victory over the rival ie. beat MSU 3 years in a row, then the final win nets $3k.)
Frosh QB - 20k
Starting Frosh QB - 30k
Soph QB - 25k
Starting Soph QB - 35k
3. Name and Likeness money is put into a 401k account and transferred to the player once they leave school.
NIL money is given to the athlete immediately to do with as the athlete pleases.
No on 2.
#1)
EVERYBODY'S a 5*!
My underwear--and the title--from "Dictator" to "Pope".
If I were King of Kollege Football:
-8 team playoff system, with top 4 teams (nobody other than conference champs) hosting opening round home games
-Maximum 12 teams per conference and no Conference Championship Game (goodbye Rutgers and at least 1 of these 3: Maryland, Penn St, MSU)
-ND must join a conference if they want to be included (ND allowed in B1G as long as we can boot the Criminal Assault schools, Penn St and MSU)
-better access available for an undefeated non-Power 5 team to be included in an 8-team playoff
-A completely rewritten NCAA disciplinary manual with REAL penalties for major violations
-lifetime supply of the drugs responsible for me having hallucinations of all of the above
- Limit 5-star recruits to 3 per class per school
- Scholarship players may also be paid up to $25k per annum
- Kill conference divisions
- No more than 2 cupcakes on the regular season schedule
- Everyone plays the same number of conference games
- Expand CFP to 8 teams
- Eliminate (often redundant) conference title games and replace with regional first round playoff games on those dates ... games played at home field of higher-ranked team
- Final 4 play one week before Jan 1 (in the 4 major Bowls)
- CFP title game on Jan 1 at 7pm EST (not a Bowl game)
- Reduce number of bowls by requiring 7 wins to qualify and have only two of those bowl games played on Jan 1 as warm-ups to the CFP title game
death penalty to MSU and PSU football for various reasons
Scheduling is the biggest thing. Everything in you list under 2 sounds good. I would add that teams be limited to scheduling no more than 2 FCS teams over a 5 year span to remain eligible for the playoff.
Kick Rutgers, Maryland, Penn State and Nebraska out of the Big Ten. Nebraska, and Texas A&M, back to the Big Twelve. Don’t really care what the other three do. Also the Big Ten is the Western Conference now.
More bowl games in the north.
Fire all the PAC 12 conference staff and start from scratch.
Let players transfer once for any reason. Also if their head coach leaves.
Increase scholarships to 95 (obvious Title IX implications). But teams are required to have an open scholarship for every recruit whose commitment they accept. Schools must honor those commitments. No more “offers”. Players can’t communicate with other schools while they are committed to a school, but can back out if they want. Pretty much Brian’s idea.
Let players hire agents and get drafted.
Persuade the NFL to create a minor league for players who want to be paid.
Piped in music is banned everywhere and for all time.
Name and Image rights.
Get rid of Conference championship games. Regular season championships are far more meaningful to me. If we must have conference championships the Big 10’s is in Chicago.
Add a bye week. Get rid of the SEC’s late season cupcake games. All P5 teams are required to play at least one P5 non conference game.
M-ND is mandatory every year.
All Michigan games are at noon. I’m a heartless dictator who doesn’t care that you heathens like night games.
Schools aren’t forced to buy bowl tickets.
Alcohol is available for purchase in stadiums.
All games are played on natural grass.
Get off my lawn.
Sacks would not be considered negative rushing yards. Institute the NFL rule of Sack Yards Lost. Counting a sack as a rushing stat skews the numbers and is not accurate. If they are going to give the defensive player a sack, the QB should not have his rushing yards impacted by the play. Also, it hurts the overall rushing numbers for the team.
Every conference winner would be in the playoff. No selection committees.
8-Team playoff: Auto-bid for the five major conference and three at-large teams. Quarterfinals at the top seed stadium, keep the rest of the bowl schedule the same.
Develop a scoring system for ranking teams. Give bonus points for playing a ranked (Top 50) team. Earn additional points if it's a non-conference game or if you're playing on the road or win the game. Teams should be rewarded for playing a ranked team, win or lose. That should increase the number of on-campus ranked games in the non-conference.
Also, let the kids earn money. I'm not for giving kids a salary. But let the kids make some money for wearing Big Baller Brand cleats (Don't laugh...they'll be here one day)!
4 x 15 team conferences. round robin 14 game regular season. No out of conference games, no conference championship games. You play every team in your conference every year. Conference winner is best record, tie breaker is margin of victory (capped at 28 points per game). Winner of each conference plays the second place team in another conference with the first place team at home. Winner of those games go to semis at neutral sights. Third through Eighth place teams play same place finisher in other conferences in bowl games.
Each conference is affiliated with a lower tier conference with 16-18 teams. First place team from lower tier gets automatically promoted. Second and Third place team from lower tier have a playoff game for promotion. Last place in upper tier gets demoted and thirteenth and fourteenth place have a playoff, loser gets demoted.
Oh let me think..hmm..first..I think I'll...PAY THE PLAYERS. All football and basketball players in P5 conference schools get a generous stipend (approx $20K) each semester they are on the team - it goes into a trust they can't touch until they graduate.
I'd start by putting a cap on the salaries of NCAA execs and conf commissioners at $500K and set the max salary for an athletic director or head coach at $1 million (that's generous - if they don't like it they can coach in the pros). Now there's a lot more money to go around. Secondly, let the players profit from their image and likeness. Then, apply the hockey and baseball draft system to football and basketball.
I'd bring back the old Big East (but really for basketball purposes). But a modern football conference w Miami, WV, VTech, Pitt, Syracuse, etc. isn't that bad. I'd add Rutgers to this conference as well and send Maryland back to the ACC where they are a founding member.
Unless there was a hurricane or cancellation earlier in the season, SEC teams can no longer schedule non-con cupcakes in November, especially in the 2nd to last game.
I'm crazy but I would like to go back to the old schedule and bowl system (and I prefer when Michigan played Ohio State the Saturday before Thanksgiving instead of after and I don't like the conf championship games). Play the bowls on and around New Years Day and with the old conference matchups - Big Ten vs PAC 10 in Rose Bowl, etc. And if there are still 2 or even 3 undefeated teams afterwards then have a Bonus Bowl or playoff. I know I'm crazy on this issue but I don't care.
By my decree...
i would actually make cheating a serious, enforceable, and costly act.
Allow players to get paid some sort of reasonable compensation and bring back EA Sport's NCAA Football
Power Five-Group of Five Conference promotion-relegation system:
- Each conference pairs with a regional mid-major (Big Ten with MAC, for instance)
- The MAC champion plays the last place B1G team in a game on conference championship weekend
- Winner is promoted/remains in B1G while the loser is relegated/remains in MAC
It’d really throw a monkey-wrench into things, but this is just for fun.
If not that, then a conference champions-only tourney, including all Power Five-Group of Five champs, seeded by committee, with top four teams getting byes the first week.
- Independence join a conference or are excluded
- The first round starts after the week after conference championships
- First two rounds would be home games for the higher-seeded team
- The final two rounds would basically work out as the playoff currently does.
I’d just like to see it all decided on the field for once.
ha, you just beat me to it
this MAC/B1G pro/rel makes me wet.