We all love college football.
We love the fall Saturdays, the competition, the trash-talk, the battle for conference supremacy. Hell, we even love the nine dollar beer at the stadium. We love all of it.
But when -- or maybe because -- you love something you realize its imperfections, its problems.
Like folks who rave about breakfast restaurants, think flip-flops are everyday footwear and that ranch makes everything better, college football has some issues. They haven't yet become serious enough to make people want to abandon the sport altogether, but if it continues down this road that day could come.
Luckily for college football, I am here to fix what ails it.
The way I see it, there are four basic issues affecting the game:
- Game length
- The process of choosing the teams that qualify for the College Football Playoff
- Player compensation
- Transfers
Let's address these things in order.
GAME LENGTH
The most recent data available is from 2017, and it showed that the average length of a college game was 3:24, the longest in history and several minutes longer than the average college baseball game.
There are myriad reasons why this has happened -- replay, injuries, more passing, commercial breaks increasing. All of these things have conspired to lengthen college football games, and it's affecting the enjoyment of the product.
There isn't much that can be done about injuries, those are going to happen. But the other issues can be fixed, fairly easily.
One easy remedy is to not stop the clock after a first down, except in the final two minutes of a half or the game. It may seem innocuous, like there really isn't that much time wasted after a first down, but those 10-15 stoppages can add up, and before you know you're looking at 5-6 extra minutes right there.
Replay isn't going anywhere, but it needs to become more streamlined. Give it a time limit. If the officials can't reach a conclusion in 90 seconds, then the call stands. There are more than enough angles with which to see a play, and a majority are pretty easy to figure out. There are far too many close calls that end up wasting three, sometimes four, minutes, which is no fun for the fans nor the players. So put a clock on the replay. If you have enough to overturn it in 90 seconds (maybe two minutes at most), go ahead and reverse the call. If you don't, then leave it alone. While replay in theory is great -- especially if it's going to overturn egregious mistakes -- it doesn't need to be used on every play, when there's maybe a difference of two inches on a spot.
Dealing with those two things could cut games by 15 minutes, which would put it more in line with what's expected.
CFP SELECTION
Since its inception, the College Football Playoff has gotten pushback -- mostly from fans. While the committee has more often than gotten the teams right, the process itself has come under major scrutiny. We have no idea how teams are separated, there is no set criteria -- it's largely a guessing game that often comes down to bigger brand name.
While I am not for expansion nor automatic berths, something needs to be done about the process. Whether it's putting in a requirement that a team must be a conference winner or must have a strength of schedule above 50 or whatever, something has to be done to help fans understand WHY certain teams get selected over others.
A lot of people complain that it isn't truly a playoff when one (and sometimes two) winner of a major conference gets left out of the proceedings. To those leagues and teams I say, get better. Leave no doubt that you're one of the best four out there, make it impossible for the committee to overlook you. The fact that the CFP is four teams is a great thing, it really makes it feel special. The NCAA Basketball Tournament gets a ton of fanfare, but does the best team always (or even most of the time) win it? If you truly want to crown the best team in college football, you don't want to bring in outliers with two losses or a upset winner of a conference championship game. It's not about deserving, it's about best. And if you haven't proven during the season that you're one of the best then you shouldn't be in.
All of that said, I won't be kicking and screaming when the committee decides to move to eight teams. I reserve the right to both kick and scream if it goes above eight, however.
To the committee, I say this -- just be truthful. If you're putting Alabama in over UCF or Ohio State in over Utah, say it's because they bring more eyes to the television. Don't hide behind this "both were very deserving but in the end we felt that their loss to (fill in the blank with a .500 team) was better than being undefeated in a conference we don't regard as being very good."
PLAYER COMPENSATION
I may be in the minority as someone who has zero problem with college football players getting paid. All of the preachy "they are getting paid, it's called a scholarship" platitudes are outdated, especially when you factor in cost of attendance at many schools. Scholarships are great, but I don't remember the last time a player was able to go out with his buddies and tell the establishment "I don't have any money, but I can pay for my meal with this scholarship." Let me know the last time that happened. I'll wait.
There is also the not-so-small matter of the leagues and networks and schools making a ton of money off of the product, but the reason for people watching -- the athletes -- sees none of it. Hell, I get gas money from friends when I offer to drive for the night, so is it really that difficult for the schools to pass a little something on the players?
It really isn't, though they will bend over backward to tell you otherwise.
Simple solution -- allow the players to appear in advertisements, sign autographs, get compensated for their likeness. The money can go into an account, receivable at the end of their eligibility or when they decide to go pro . Even if they leave school for non-athletic reasons, they get the money.
Some may say that's not fair, that the center won't make as much as the quarterback or the linebacker. Welcome to the real world. Not everyone is valued the same in business, a fact that needs to be learned early. If a quarterback can get two commercials and a print ad, good for him. He is often the most visible player on the team, so why shouldn't he be able to realize something for it?
The NCAA could help by not making entrepreneurial players shut down their YouTube accounts or the T-shirt company they have launched. The NCAA's mission should be about teams following rules and having a level playing field. A kid making money off a product he developed is NOT a competitive advantage, and to tell them that they can't play because it violates the "spirit of amateurism" is bullshit. What it is is an attempt by the governing body to make sure that it retains complete control over finances.
That's not how it works, boys, and when the day comes that the players gain control over themselves and their likenesses it will be a great one. And I will laugh at you and your antiquated, not-helping-anyone policies for quite some time. At least an hour.
TRANSFERS
This one is the current hot button issue, and I must admit that while I was for it at the start, I am a bit more ambivalent about it now.
Don't get me wrong, players should have most of the control over their situations. When a coach promises one thing and delivers something else, why should the player stick around? That said, too many guys are leaving simply because they weren't able to beat somebody out. I get it, guys want to play. But what about working harder, becoming better and making it impossible for the coaches to ignore you, rather than just tucking tail and looking for greener pastures?
There are two issues with transfers -- the decision on who is or isn't eligible, and when they happen.
Again, simple solutions.
If a player wants to transfer, they are immediately eligible. No ifs, ands or buts. They don't have to prove hardship, they can play right away. I mean, coaches can leave for another job with no restriction, so why shouldn't players be allowed to? There is a catch, however -- if they want to transfer a second time, they have to sit out a season. When playing time is the main reason a player leaves, it often results in a poor choice. They leave thinking the depth chart at the new school is wide open, then other players at their position also transfer in, and suddenly that path to playing time is a little more crowded. So do they leave again? If they do, their initial poor decision actually has consequences, forces them to sit out. Maybe if that provision is attached to transferring players will actually THINK about leaving and pick a school, rather than REACTING and picking a situation. The only exceptions in a second transfer would be if a dire family situation arises and they need to move closer to home. Immediate eligibility would also help to avoid truly mind-blogglingly dumb decisions by the NCAA, like denying Luke Ford eligibility at Illinois even though he had the most legit reason ever.
The second part of this is timing.We've seen players transfer even now, into June. Rosters are mostly set and scholarships have been handed out. Coaches are thinking about game plans for the upcoming season. Then a kid knocks on his door in mid June and says "sorry coach, but I'm leaving."
There are deadlines for declaring for the NFL Draft, for signing recruits. Why not have a deadline for when a player can transfer? Say, the end of April. Teams have finished spring practice, and players have a pretty good feel for where they stand on the depth chart. They would still have a couple of weeks to make a decision, to seek out new horizons. If they are still around on April 30, they have to stay in their current program. This way the coaches aren't left scrambling with an open scholarship in the middle of the summer, with no way to fill it.
A deadline would, in my learned opinion, alleviate much of this willy-nilly movement.
There is a part of this where the coaches need to have some culpability, though. A very wise coach named David Shaw said recently that using the NFL as the top selling point for your program is doing a huge disservice to players, and really isn't needed. These kids can Google the most successful programs, they know what's up. Shaw said it's no wonder a kid going into his third season gets upset when he's second-team, because the coaches sold him the idea of the NFL. Shaw said that his program sells the value of a Stanford education (which, admittedly, not many schools can equal), about working together for a common goal and playing for the name on the front of the jersey and not the back.
The hope is that some (or all) of these ideas will be embraced by the right people, and that the game we love so much can continue to bring joy.
More likely is that the ideas -- all great -- will be ignored, the powers that be with continue with biz as usual and then wonder why, in 10 years, interest in their wonderful product has waned.
