Ways to make college football better

In January, Ohio State defeated Oregon in the first ever college football playoff and more than 30 million people watched the historic event. There are some folks who believe than an 8 team playoff would be too much for the players to grasp and wouldn’t be fair in general. Furthermore those against expanding the playoff from 4 to 8 would believe that a college football season with 868 FBS games is better than an 872 game FBS. However, the discussion of how to improve the game has not received as much press as some would believe it should.

Adam Silversten of CBS Sports and others from CBS Sports discuss their suggestions for improving the college game as a whole.

Dennis Dodd, senior college football columnist suggests that the game get rid of the kickoff acknowledging that the idea sounds crazy but contends that many injuries come from this part of the game whether one is on the receiving team or kicking team. The big question when pondering this is does the kickoff generate excitement? Yes fans will see returners take the ball the other way to the house but we live in an era where player safety is a top priority for any level of football. Dodd brings statistics into the equation mentioning that during the 2014 NFL regular season there were 1,226 kickoffs and 6 of them were taken back for a touchdown, a success rate of 0.4%.

Jon Solomon of CBS Sports suggests that college football use a running clock. He notes that the NFL does this and the concept is being studied in college football inner circles, would reduce game times and plays. He continues by noting that college football continues to add games and never takes them away and estimates that college football players are involved in a couple hundred plays more than this time a decade ago. “I don’t think there would be a whole lot of opposition from coaches,” said Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez, an up-tempo coach. If college football adopts this recommendation, the fans will likely be uncomfortable with this but many players may admit that less plays will save them much needed energy for later in the season.

The afore mentioned Silverstein suggests that college football should be required to have pylons and sideline cameras adding that we are in the digital age adding that there is a high definition camera all over the field and one hovering over the sky. He continues by arguing that while their potential use has been met with favorable views including at the 2015 college football playoff national championship game, there has hardly been any movement adding pylon cameras. These cameras will help officials determine whether a touchdown called on the field is indeed a touchdown. Even plays that don’t end up in touchdowns like whether a running back got enough yardage to move the chains should be plays in which officials use the technology at their disposal to make a definitive and affirmative call. He concludes by saying that in the current game, there is way too much room for error in games that are important to millions of fans.

With regard to player safety, I have mentioned in the past that there is no perfect solution to keeping players safe from injuries. The fact to the matter is that football is an extremely dangerous game and injuries are unavoidable. Plus you add to the mix if football rule-makers at any level imposed so many rules regarding physicality, some football fans may tend to think that the game they’ve been watching is suddenly turning into a game of flag football. Dodd is on to something when he argues that there is hardly any excitement when a kickoff happens whether after a score or at the beginning of the game, and there are many injuries that occur in this part of the game. I’m not sure if I would completely eliminate the kickoff but if injuries continue to occur during this part of the game, college football should then consider eliminating the kickoff.

With regard to the running clock, I am open to seeing that proposal adopted in NCAA football and Solomon is on to something when he says that NCAA football players are amateurs, who are unable to collective bargain for their rights and with that being the case, players could see less wear and tear on their bodies. More importantly for those who wish to make it to the NFL, players with promising talent could play longer assuming that no injuries happen while one is on an NFL team.

The best suggestion to improve NCAA football is to use the technology available in the 21st Century. Having officials guess on a play that can have major ramifications destroys the credibility of NCAA football and could drive down ratings especially if a play is more than a first down play. The suggestions to make NCAA football seem to be endless but I contend that if NCAA football adopted these changes, the game would become even more popular than it is right now and college football is extremely popular in many parts of the nation. At the same time, I’m not sure I see the urgency on the NCAA’s end to adopt any of these recommendations unless something happens that changes the game for years to come in a negative way more likely than not.

NCAA football playoff system

In February, NCAA football playoff director Bill Hancock told AL.com that there were no plans to expand the new playoff system that took effect in 2014 from 4 to 8.

“I’m not hearing the drum within our business,” said Hancock. “I’m hearing it from journalists. I think we need to give this a chance. It’s such a remarkable new innovation for the game. There is no talk in our group of expanding.”

Coaches in the SEC are demanding that college football expand the playoff system from 4 games to 8.

Gus Malzahn adamant that @CFBPlayoff expands. "Our league needs eight teams. That'll all but guarantee we'll get two teams [in]."

— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) July 21, 2015

Malzahn is not alone. Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema told ESPN’s Alex Scarborough, “Expanding the playoffs to more than four teams is paramount,” and went on to tell Scarborough, “You’re not getting the best possible pool.”

Malzahn believes that the SEC is at a disadvantage because of conferences like the Big 12, which does not have a conference championship game.

There are a number of reasons why some believe the college football playoff system should be expanded from 4 to at least 8.

Greg Wallace of Bleacher Report says that running a college athletic department continues to be more expensive these days. Coaching salaries especially at the highest levels are increasing drastically and programs across the nation continue to upgrade their facilities with a huge price tag attached. According to Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal, ESPN’s college football playoff contract is worth over $5.5 billion over 12 years.

Probably the strongest argument for expanding the playoff is ratings. The national semifinals game brought ESPN the largest overnight ratings ever and 12 days later, the Oregon-Ohio State match up drew an average of over 33 million viewers.

Michael Bird of SB Nation argues that the 2015 NCAA Final Four is a reason why college football should not expand their new playoff system. Some of the teams in the NCAA basketball tournament included: Butler and George Mason but Bird argues that most of the viewing public tuned it out because it was viewed by the audience that these teams were not the best in the nation. Continuing on that point, fans like dynasties. For example, ESPN would dream of having the Red Sox and Yankees playing every season in the American League Championship series. This year before losing to Wisconsin in the final four, Kentucky went undefeated and that was one of the top stories in collegiate sports last year. He sums up his argument by saying in part: “If a team can finish ninth in its conference and be national champion, your playoff is too big.”

I have mentioned how dangerous the sport is and as of now, I am hesitant to support the idea to expand from 4 teams to 8 until college football fans are exposed to the system with 4 teams for at least a couple seasons. While its encouraging that coaches from the SEC come out and support the idea of expanding the playoff system, I would like to see more coaches from other conferences come out and voice their opinion and if it is a warm reception, I would then say, lets look at taking the next step. However before that I would like to see the players come out and voice their opinions because they would be affected the most if college football takes the next step. College football will always have some debate and controversy attached to it and there is no perfect way to determine a national champion especially with powerful voices having much influence.

J.A. Adande said on ESPN’s Around the Horn in January when Texas Christian University was left out in the dark despite being ranked NO. 3 in the College Football Playoff Selection Committee the week earlier, “Is Ohio State a bigger brand? Is it a better TV product? Yes,” Adande said. “Let’s not forget this is a television show.” Some will argue that ESPN has too much of an influence in the decision making and to Adande’s point, while it is partly a television show, when will a college football championship game actually be a game of who are the best teams from an objective point not from just ESPN’s point of view. I don’t dislike ESPN but we’ve seen schools like Ohio State who do exceptionally well in the regular season but in a season such as 2006, the Buckeyes win 12 of 13 regular season games only to get blown out in the BCS Championship by the Florida Gators 41-14 in January 2007. ESPN knows that when a school such as Ohio State are in the championship game, ratings will be there but wouldn’t it have been better for all of these years to see games that are decided by a touchdown or field goal in the final minute?

Notre Dame football conference controversy

In September 2012, Notre Dame announced that the Men’s Basketball team would move to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) but nearly 3 years after the announcement was made, the school’s football team is still in an Independent conference. Recently executive director Bill Hancock announced that Notre Dame does not need to join an existing conference in order to be eligible to participate in the playoffs in future years. “They have the ability to craft their schedules to fit their needs. If their need and goal is to be in the playoff, then they’re in the same boat as everybody else. You better play a good schedule if you want to be in the playoff,” Hancock said.

Some will argue that this creates an unfair playing advantage for the Fighting Irish. Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer says that Notre Dame is a great school but shouldn’t be given preferential treatment. “I don’t think any program should be treated differently,” per Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com.

Since Notre Dame is Independent, they are able to schedule games around the nation but it can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the Fighting Irish have seen seemingly key games against schools such as Michigan and USC become less relevant as those schools lose their status of being one of the top college football programs in the country. At the same time, independence has not come without any cost, and that is that their schedule turns into a weekly onslaught. However, it seems as if regardless of what coaches believe, the school’s football program will remain independent as they have been from their inception.

Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel told ESPN.com, “I think all independents should join a conference, as a general rule, I didn’t say Notre Dame in particular — everybody. You don’t have independents in the NFL. Leagues are leagues. I just think it’s difficult to assess a team that’s not in a league. It’s nothing against Notre Dame, it’s just my opinion.”

I don’t have a particular team that I root for speaking only in Division 1, but it has been difficult for me to jump on the Irish bandwagon even when they are doing well. There is this elitist attitude with this program that they are above the rules that most of college football deals with especially at this time, a few weeks before the season is set to begin. Even with the hiring of Brian Kelly in 2010, I have never bought the hype that they are as good as their record tends to lead one to believe.

I’m not accusing the program of cheating but if they had been in the Big 10 for all these years, the competition would have been stiffer. Furthermore, if you want to prove you are an elite program in whatever sport, you need to show you can defeat the premiere programs like Michigan was at one time. Their all-time winning percentage is north of 70% and at the end of the day, they should not have as much say on what their schedule is as they do. One of my questions to the Irish football program is that if you think you are truly an elite program, then wouldn’t you be eager to prove the critics wrong, prove the critics that you should be taken seriously?

I honestly do not have a preference for what conference I would like them to join but the fact they are independent is part of the reason why this program is either liked with a passion or disliked with a passion. I don’t see the Irish football program changing anytime soon but as long as they remain independent, the critics will have valid reasons to believe that they aren’t the hot shots they claim to be.