Thursday, December 29, 2005
This Game I Can Do Without
Major college bowl games: haven't seen one yet, nor do I plan to.
I'm not terribly interested in this system which attempts to pit the numbers one and two college teams against each other. Then it takes the next six or eight-best teams (more or less) and matches them up. Then it takes the best of the rest, plus big money schools that scraped together six wins to maximize tourist and tv dollars.
Here's my suggestion for the system that looks like a 98-lb weakling compared to the NCAA Women's ... Division III Dance.
Move all traditional bowl games to August and institute what every other college sport on every other level does: a true playoff system. Institute an eight-team or even 16-team tournament. If it makes the bowl folk feel any better, offer December/January editions of fifteen bowls--the tournament games major college football should have.
August Bowls would hype interest in various teams before baseball pennant races get hot. If the big money schools with six wins in the previous year want an extra game, let 'em have one. Some northern cities might get to go bowling too (Seattle's Microsoft Latte Bowl, Chicago's Boeing Windy Bowl, and the like). The traditional bowls stay happy, get a second game each year, and might draw better for a sunny Saturday afternoon or a cool August evening than some wintry setting matching teams with a good handful of losses between them. Heck, everybody in an August bowl would be undefeated. Every bowl game could sell it has the national champion in the making.
In the meantime, major college football has never determined a champion, and in my mind, the only Division I football champion of 2005 is Appalachian State. They won more playoff games this year than any I-A team won bowl games in the past three years.
