Problems solved!

Let's end this on a high note! Well, at least the first round of posts to get the idea out there. I may come back with clarifications, updates, or further thoughts later.

Here are problems this solves:

• There's (gasp) a true NATIONAL CHAMPION!!!!
• The (roughly) top 60 teams from the previous year are in the big leagues.
• You still have to be a really, really good team to win it all. No flukes.
• Keeps most bowl games in tact -- at least the bowl system survives.
• Bowl slotting based on conference finish only -- can't be passed over by "sexier", less qualified schools; largely keeps traditional bowl matchups in tact
• 2nd-tier conference champions, along with getting promoted, get to play in bowl games.
• EVERYBODY in Division 1-A can play for a National Championship, theoretically, within 1 year. If a team is good enough, it'll get promoted to a playoff-eligible conference.
• Schools in 2nd-tier conferences no longer have to be "stepping-stone" jobs -- a team can play its way to annual national relevancy, and a coach wouldn't necessarily have to leave a school for more money/prestige/opportunity
• Mostly keeps traditional conferences & rivalries in tact, but allows for some non-conference scheduling flexibility. Can keep traditional non-conference rivalries; can schedule tough games to toughen up team; can schedule easier games to get playing time for depth chart.
• Differing scheduling philosophies wouldn't be punished by a BCS formula for inclusion in a playoff, though it could affect seed.
• No controversy over who is and isn't included in the playoff, based on strength-of-schedule, lack of a conference championship game, etc. -- a true meritocracy.
• Maximum number of games a team could play in a season is 15 -- teams have played 15 games before.
• Conferences don't lose revenue from championship games, as they get replaced by promotion playoff games. In fact, we'd go from 5 of such games today, to 6 in this format.
• Every team plays every other team within its conference, in every conference. This is equitable across all conferences and there is consistency across all of college football.
• One loss doesn't necessarily kill a season, so "big" teams might be more likely to play one another in the non-conference schedule.
• The 1st tier conferences will all have 10 really deserving teams -- you'll have to be very, very good to qualify for the playoff, or even a bowl game.
• BIG motivation for teams near the bottom of 1st tier conferences -- teams won't just be playing out the season.

Negatives/problems/questions unanswered

While I think this is a phenomenal idea, the reality of it is that it'd be REALLY tough to make this happen, and it would cause some problems that would need to be solved too. I'm not naive enough to think this is a perfect design. Here are some problems that came to mind:

• Relegation's a bitch. It would create pressure on coaches and be tough for Athletic Departments, who rely heavily on football revenue to survive, to plan. Obviously, revenues would be much higher for the 1st tier teams than the 2nd tier.
• There would have to be some sort of financial "parachute" for teams that get relegated from the 1st tier for 1-3 years, to help them adjust. I know this happens in the English Premier League, I just don't know the specifics. Probably a good framework to use, though.
• There would need to be a common criteria for revenue sharing & distribution across all the conferences.
• Lost revenue of not having a 12th regular season game. It could happen, but this would lead to the national finalists playing 15 or 16 games. Realistically, if anything ever got to the point where this was the main pain point, I'd be ecstatic!
• Travel problems for teams & fans for teams going several rounds in the tournament. This doesn't exactly cause a problem for basketball though.
• Closed membership to Division 1 would be limited to 120 teams, though is this really a bad thing? I suppose there could be a way to accommodate D1-AA promotion or a playoff, but I have no idea if this would lead to scholarship or funding issues.
• There's inherent strength & weakness of conferences, but we have this today. At least a team could play up to a stronger league.
• The 2nd tier leagues would be giving up their autonomy
• Football leagues' memberships wouldn't match other sports.
• Potential academic ramifications of a change/loss of membership in certain leagues?? I have no idea here, but I know the Big 10, for example, fancies itself as a superior conference, academically.
• Non-conference scheduling problems not knowing which league a team would be in; might lead to the loss of some long-time non-conference rivalries.
• Might be tough to make happen, logistically, with contracts already signed for non-conference matchups well into the future. As with all contracts, though, these can likely be bought out or rescheduled.
• There would need to be a commissioner or someone in charge of the whole thing. This could be a high-up person in the NCAA
• Obviously, the biggest hurdle would be getting all the school ADs and Presidents, Conference Commissioners, Bowl representatives, TV people, and everyone else to agree to this.
• Notre Dame would have to play by the same rules as everybody else, and accept it's no different than any other football-powers-in-their-own-minds. I guess there's no reason they can't still have a TV contract though...

The rest of the bowls

I think most can agree there are too many bowl games. I'm sure several of them are struggling financially. But I think they have a place in college football; their history can't be ignored, and for a large number of programs, they're legitimate goals and rewards. It was huge for Vanderbilt in 2008, regardless of what game they went to. I can still remember the excitement and importance of my beloved K-State's first bowl win (and only 2nd appearance!) in 1993, and it was the springboard to a very, very good 10-year run of football.

Anyway, there's room for the bowls in my proposal, but some had to go. I have 22 bowl games -- that seems about right. I just took a random shot to guesstimate which ones should stay and which ones should go. Mostly, the newer ones, or the ones taking 8th- or 9th-place teams from leagues got the axe. In reality, negotiation and economics would drive which games stay and which games go, but these were my suggestions to eliminate: Texas Bowl, Motor City Bowl, GMAC Bowl, EagleBank Bowl, International Bowl, Armed Forces Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl, New Orleans Bowl.

Again, for the sake of consistency and equity, only the top 6 teams from each 1st-tier conference go to a bowl (isn't that enough?), and only the champion of the 2nd-tier conferences go. The 2nd place teams already played promotion playoff games, so in reality, the top 2 teams in each 2nd-tier league play in the post-season. That's about enough.

I tried to keep conference affiliations and prestige in mind. I had to put a random conference in a few places, but for the most part, the affiliations stayed true to what's in place today. And no more of 2nd place team from league X plays 6th place team from league Y -- a team will play a team from a different conference who finished in the same place. In my opinion, this would lead to some pretty good ballgames. Scheduling would be similar to today -- whatever best works for travel and TV is good to me.

The non-playoff bowl games

• Holiday: PAC 10 #3 vs. Big 12 #3
• Gator: ACC #3 vs. Big East #3
• Outback: Big 10 #3 vs. SEC #3
• Sun: PAC10 #4 vs. Big East #4
• Alamo: Big 12 #4 vs. Big 10 #4
• Champs Sports: ACC #4 vs. SEC #4
• Music City: ACC #5 vs. SEC #5
• Insight: Big East #5 vs. Big 12 #5
• Las Vegas: PAC10 #5 vs. Big 10 #5
• Independence: Big 12 #6 vs. SEC #6
• Meineke Car Care: Big East #6 vs. Big 10 #6
• Emerald: PAC10 #6 vs. ACC #6
• Liberty: Conf. USA #1 vs. Metro #1
• PapaJohns.com: Sun Belt #1 vs. MAC #1
• Hawaii: WAC #1 vs. Mtn. West #1

Playoff specifics, using bowl games

See the previous post for context, and who's included in a playoff. For what it's worth, these are flexible and just suggestions, but I think they could work. I tried to accommodate as much history and tradition as possible, keeping in mind logistics, money, and the traditional anti-playoff arguments.

PLAYOFF FIRST ROUND:
We've got a 12-team bracket, seeded. First round playoff games, between teams seeded 5-12, will be played on the home field of the higher-seeded team. This helps minimize travel & expense for fans. These games will be played the second week of December, the week after the relegation playoffs.

NATIONAL QUARTER-FINALS:
After that round, we have 8 teams left who will play in the National Quarter-finals. These will be played as these 4 bowls: Cotton, Chick-Fil-A (Peach), Capital One (Citrus), Orange (sorry -- a current BCS game had to go; it could be any of the 4, though). The match-ups would be based on seeding and the rules in the previous post, but selection of games would be rotated among the bowls year-by-year, similar to how it's done in the BCS today. These games would be played the weekend before Christmas.

NATIONAL SEMI-FINALS & CHAMPIONSHIP GAME:
No more of this 2 games in one city, a week apart crap. The final will be rotated among the Rose, Fiesta, and Sugar Bowls; the other 2 in any given year will be the semi-finals, and game selection would be rotated like for the quarter-finals. The semi-finals will be on January 1, and the National Championship game will be on January 8.

THE CONCERNS OF THE BOWLS BEING A STEPPING-STONE
I recognize this is legitimate. I'm sure the Cotton or Orange Bowl doesn't want its champion to merely be whoever advances in a playoff, but there are sacrifices to make in order for this to work. And let's face it, any final-8 game would be a kajillion times more exciting than the Cincinnati/Virginia Tech Orange Bowl last year. I had to look up who played in it -- that's how lackluster it was. Or the magical Utah/Pitt Fiesta Bowl from a few years back -- YUK! The teams that don't belong will get weeded out in the first round. If not, hello Cinderella story!

Maybe the 4 current BCS bowls could work out something where they rotate: for instance, the year after (or before) being the National Championship game, it's the quarter-final bowl. Let's make that happen. In fact, since this is my proposal, consider it done.

REVENUE SPLITS:
Hopefully this one should be pretty straight-forward. Profits from the first round (on campus) playoff games would be split 50/50 between the participating conferences. As for the other bowl games, I wouldn't expect much to change from today.

PLAYOFF!!!!!

OK -- the good stuff. How a playoff would work in this scenario.

As I said before, conference standings are all that matter in this. If you don't win a non-conference game, but win your conference, that's ok. That's kinda how it is now; conference champions go to the BCS, regardless of how much they sucked in the non-conference. The difference here is that they still have an opportunity to win a National Championship. To me, that's ok.

So here's the earth-shattering formula to determine teams who qualify for the playoff:

• 1st and 2nd place teams in the 1st-tier leagues

That's it. Its beauty is in its simplicity.

True, it excludes the 2nd-tier teams, but how many of those would ever be in the discussion anyway? If a BCS team finished in last place in its league one year, it's not going to be National Championship caliber the next season. If a non-BCS team couldn't finish in the top 2 of its league the year before, it's not either. AND, any team can play their way here, theoretically, in 2 years.

Example: Idaho really sucked in 2008. Let's say in 2009 they improve leaps and bounds and win the WAC. Congratulations -- now you're in the PAC10. If they continue to improve and can finish in the top 2, they're in the playoff and can, theoretically, win a National Championship. Ask Boise State what needs to be done now to win a National Championship from the WAC. Impossible.

Anyway, back to the playoff format. We've got 12 teams, and this is where some sort of BCS-type formula is needed, and where non-conference games matter, somewhat. I can't emphasize this enough: BCS standings are NOT used for inclusion into the playoff, only for seeding within the playoff. There will be no debate over which teams deserve to play for a National Championship. If you can't finish in the top 2 of your league, you don't deserve to win it all anyway. So here's how this works:

• Teams seeded based on BCS ranking
• Top 4 teams get byes into the 2nd round; team must be a conference champion to receive a bye
• Teams get re-seeded after 1st round games
• Teams from the same conference can't meet in the 1st or 2nd rounds

More specifics about the playoffs in the next post.

Scheduling

Before I get to the real good stuff, I need to talk about scheduling.

See, this is why my plan is good -- it's more comprehensive than other playoff suggestions. It incorporates details, as well as other important aspects of whether something like this could happen or not. We've got uniformity across all the leagues and teams in the country. Scheduling will be no different. Here are my suggestions.

An 11-game schedule. Might be able to go with 12 here, but 11 is better to accommodate the playoff. And it kind of makes all the complaining about too many games, not enough time for class, etc., hollow. Each team will play 9 conference games and 2 non-conference games.

I understand that with 9 conference games, there will be an advantage to the teams who get 5 home games. Following with the general theme here, why should this be arbitrary? Why not have the best, most-deserving teams, get the extra home conference game. Makes sense, right?

Here's how this will work:

• The top 5 finishing teams from the previous season get 5 home games; the bottom 5 get 4 home games.
• If conference teams play traditional neutral-site games (Texas/Oklahoma, Army/Navy, Florida/Georgia, Kansas/Missouri, etc.), each of those team will get 4 home and 4 away games.
• For scheduling purposes, the automatically promoted team "replaces" the relegated (10th-place) team; if the 1st tier team wins the playoff game, nothing changes; if the 2nd tier team wins, it becomes the 10th place team and the automatically promoted team is 9th place. This is really only important for figuring out which home game gets replaced, if applicable.
• Teams will alternate home and away games against one another within a conference, with "replacement" happening as outlined above.
• If teams placed 1-5 are scheduled to have 5 away games, they will get another home game by means of: the top ranked remaining team with 5 away games will become the home team against the top ranked team placed 6-10 still scheduled to have 5 home games. This will be repeated until all teams have the appropriate number of home games, based on previous year's finish.

One last note: all regular season games will be played by Thanksgiving weekend. The relegation playoff games, played in lieu of the current conference championship games (but there will be 6 of them, instead of the current 5), will be the same weekend -- first weekend of December.

To the victors, go the spoils -- Promotion & Relegation details

The main concept of this suggestion is meritocracy. If you are successful, you deserve the breaks & opportunities. So here's how the conferences are tied together, and how teams move between them.

All standing and placing are for conference/tier (for simplicity's sake, let's just call each 10-team group a conference) games only. Each team will play the other 9 teams in its conference (everybody plays everybody in a conference -- how novel! Consequently, there are no conference championship games. See, this is already making tons of sense). Standings will be based only on these games -- more on scheduling later.

Promotion and relegation will be determined by league standing.

For the "BCS" leagues, or first tier (remember, 10 teams per league):

• Teams placing 1-8 are safe; they'll stay in the conference.
• The last place team is relegated to its conference partner (SEC to Conference USA, for example).
• 9th place: more on them later.

For the "non-BCS" leagues, or 2nd tier:

• Conference champion gets promoted to the BCS league, or 1st tier.
• 2nd place team will play against the 9th place team from 1st tier in a playoff; winner goes (or stays) in the 1st tier.
• 3rd through 10th place teams will remain in 2nd tier.

The playoff to determine 1st or 2nd tier membership will be played in lieu of a conference championship game.

There we have it. The best teams end up in the best conferences. Obviously this changes year-to-year, but the opportunity is there for every program to build itself into a major player. And if you suck out loud year after year, well, maybe you should be playing teams a little closer to your aptitude.

TIEBREAKER:

This is probably as good a time as any to talk about the tiebreaker. Again, only conference standings will count in all standings and inclusion scenarios. This is negotiable; merely my logical suggestion. Once a team is eliminated via one of the means, the remaining tied teams will start at #1.

1. Head-to-head record among tied teams
2. Point differential in all conference games
3. Point differential in all games among tied teams

That ought to do it; I don't know how teams could possibly still be tied after this, even last year's Oklahoma/Texas/Texas Tech CF. And since everybody plays everybody else in conference play, it's even equitable.

The conferences and their members

Here's where I lie out who is in which conference. 2 conferences will be tied together for tiers 1 & 2. For the most part, I was able to keep traditional conference affiliations and/or rivalries together.

Granted, some teams have to move conferences to make the numbers work. But most of them were logical and easy to accept, at least in my mind. The 3 tough things I had to do to make this work are moving Notre Dame into an actual conference, moving Iowa St. from the Big 12 tier into the Big 10 tier, and moving Penn St. from the Big 10 to the Big East. Just made the most sense geographically, and Penn St. has been team 11 in the Big 10 for years.

The other moves are either reversing recent defections (Miami & BC back to the Big East, for example) or slight geographic tweaks among smaller schools (someone had to go from the MAC to the Small East, so I relatively arbitrarily chose Toledo & Bowling Green; Marshall & Buffalo made sense for geography and recent membership into the conference. These are negotiable if there are historic or other reasons certain teams should stay in the MAC/Big 10 tier.

One final note, the BCS teams moved into non-BCS conferences were because they sucked in 2008, and that's probably where the line would have been drawn among all those teams. In reality, probably the worst BCS teams the year before this (admittedly pipe dream of mine) ever got implemented would be in the 2nd tiers. Regardless, that would all get sorted out in subsequent years based on merit.

First tier in caps, 2nd tier in lower case
Big East/Metro: PENN ST., PITT, WEST VIRGINIA, RUTGERS, UCONN, MIAMI (FL), LOUISVILLE, NOTRE DAME, BOSTON COLLEGE, CINCINNATI, South Florida, Syracuse, Navy, Bowling Green, Army, Temple, Marshall, Central Florida, Buffalo, Toledo

ACC/Sun Belt: FLORIDA ST., GEORGIA TECH, NORTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND, WAKE FOREST, CLEMSON, NC STATE, VIRGINIA, DUKE, VIRGINIA TECH, Troy, Louisiana-Lafayette, Florida Atlantic, Arkansas St., Florida Int'l, Middle Tennessee St., Louisiana-Monroe, North Texas, Western Kentucky, Louisiana Tech

SEC/Conf USA: ALABAMA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, OLE MISS, VANDERBILT, LSU, TENNESSEE, AUBURN, SOUTH CAROLINA, KENTUCKY, Arkansas, Mississippi St., Tulsa, East Carolina, Rice, Houston, Southern Miss, Memphis, Alabama-Birmingham, Tulane

Big 10/MAC: OHIO ST., MICHIGAN, IOWA, NORTHWESTERN, MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS, PURDUE, MICHIGAN ST., INDIANA, Iowa St., Ball St., W. Michigan, C. Michigan, E. Michigan, Northern Illinois, Miami (OH), Akron, Ohio, Kent St.

Big 12/Mtn. West: TEXAS, OKLAHOMA, TEXAS TECH, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, OKLAHOMA ST., KANSAS, KANSAS ST., COLORADO, TEXAS A&M, Baylor, Utah, Texas Christian, Brigham Young, Air Force, Colorado St., Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, Texas-El Paso, Southern Methodist

PAC 10/WAC: USC, OREGON, OREGON ST., CAL, ARIZONA, STANFORD, ARIZONA ST., UCLA, WASHINGTON ST., WASHINGTON, Boise St., San Diego St., Nevada, Hawaii, Fresno St., San Jose St., Utah St., New Mexico St., Idaho, Wyoming

OK -- let's get into specifics. Open your mind.

As I said in my last post, there are 120 teams in D1-A. I'm a numbers person, and that's a nice, round number to work with.

Currently, 116 of those teams are in 11 conferences, and there are 4 independent teams. The breakdown:

• BCS conferences (65 teams): ACC (12), Big East (8), SEC (12), Big 10 (11), Big 12 (12), PAC 10 (10)
• Non-BCS conferences (51 teams): Sun Belt (8), Conference USA (12), MAC (13), Mtn. West (9), WAC (9)
• Independent (4 teams)

As I said in my previous post, only the 65 BCS teams and Notre Dame realistically have a chance to win it all. And even after their respective seasons in 2008, Washington (0-12) has a far better opportunity at a National Championship in 2009 than Utah (13-0). That ain't right.

One of the many problems is that there's so much inconsistency -- levels of competition, BCS tie-ins, polls, strengths of leagues, etc. And college football has no umbrella over it. Sure, the NCAA enforces rules and scholarship limits and the like, but in terms of consistency of competition and creating an apples-to-apples relationship between all teams, it's no good. There needs to be an overarching strategy and structure to it.

This is where I come in. And this is where you have to open your mind from the status quo and accept a different perspective. I think it could also lead to a more equitable way to determine a true National Champion. The concept is the easy part; something like this actually happening would be the tough part.

So my suggestion is this: tie each BCS conference with a Non-BCS conference -- they'll be tied together for promotion and relegation. Whether they're called Tier 1 & 2 of the BCS conference, or whether the non-BCS conference keeps its own identity and feeds to the BCS leagues could be determined later. Every conference/tier will have 10 teams.

One of the big mental hurdles to overcome is that some teams are going to have to switch conferences to accommodate this plan, but I tried to do it in a logical way. Then again, countless teams in the past 20 years have changed conference affiliations for more money, so it shouldn't be that big a deal. And yes, Notre Dame, you're going to have to be in a conference. Deal with it. Maybe you can keep your TV deal. It's not like you've gotten a bunch of bowl money recently to split anyway.

But the football conference members won't necessarily match the members for other sports, but we can get past that. The Big East has 16 basketball teams (including -- NOTRE DAME!!), and it's done in hockey and other smaller sports, so we can handle this.

I tried to tie the conferences together geographically so it makes sense. I think it works pretty well:

• Big East -- let's go old-school and call it the Metro conference (independents, other overflow)
• ACC -- Sun Belt
• SEC -- Conf. USA
• Big 10 -- MAC
• Big 12 -- Mtn. West
• PAC 10 -- WAC

Who's where? Stay tuned.

The (broken) College Football Status Quo

There are 120 teams in D1-A (I'm not calling it FBS or whatever, no matter how much the NCAA wants us to). And teams like Utah, Boise State, and Tulane (way back when) have shown us that, no matter what they do, unless you're in a BCS conference, you have absolutely no chance of winning a National Championship. They've been thrown bones by the BCS to get into the money games, but as far as winning it all is concerned? Forget it.

So every season, 65 teams *can* win the National Championship, and 55 can't -- regardless of what they do on the field. Is there any other competition in which a team can NEVER win a championship, regardless of how they do? What if the NCAA told Gonzaga basketball (a very good team, despite under-achieving in the tournament every year) that because they were in the West Coast Conference, that they aren't eligible to EVER win it all? Wouldn't work.

Keep in mind, these are 65 relatively arbitrary teams, regardless of how deserving they are. Duke and Iowa State and Washington are included, but Boise State, Utah, BYU, and TCU are excluded.

Should they be able to win it all? Do they deserve to, or is a 1- or 2-loss BCS team more deserving based on the season-long grind of, say, the SEC vs. the WAC. That argument has been exhausted without a right answer. I hope to help solve that.

Couldn't find a way for all 120 teams to be eligible every year, but that's a bit unrealistic. But I think I have found a method for the best 60 programs to have dreams of playing for it all every year, and all 120 within 2 years. After all, shouldn't the 60 most deserving teams have the opportunity, instead of the best situated politically? I think so.

How College Football is so much like European soccer

I think a lot about soccer, and I think a lot about college football. But for whatever reason, those thoughts never really crossed. I guess since college football is played by (cough) amateurs and soccer is played by pros, I always drew the parallels between soccer and the pro sports in the US.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the concept of relegation and promotion fascinates me, and I think it's absolutely something we need in American sports. But due to league setup, the, um, finicky, nature of pro sports fans, and history, there's no way it'd happen in American pro sports. An NFL team *might* be able to survive with its fan base if relegated, but it'd never work, and it's completely impractical.

One of the things that's remarkable about European soccer (again, I'll use England as my example) is the fierce loyalty of the local supporters. They're with their team, lots of times, "'til I die." They'll stay with them if they're relegated, there's no better feeling than if they're winning, they sing, it's an instant connection with like fans, and the rivalries are intense.

That's when it hit me -- the only connection, on the whole, that compares in the USA is with our college teams, regardless of the sport. Even if my team sucks, they're still my alma mater, I'll be a fan for life, and I'll always care -- even if they're not playing for national championships. And it's not just certain schools like it would be for certain pro teams, every school has a large, committed fan base. And it's a passion unmatched in any other sport.

Also, the teams acquire players in similar ways -- recruiting. There's no draft, just a process of wooing and promising things that other teams can't. Granted, in soccer money is (legally) involved and in college football, it isn't. *wink* Regardless, this is why promotion and relegation could work in college football, but not in professional sports in the USA.

And this is why, if anywhere, promotion and relegation could work in college football. Imagine the joy of a fan of, say, Idaho, was good enough to join the PAC-10; or Ball State joining the Big 10. Or the disappointment of, oh, Oklahoma, being demoted to the Mountain West. But even if that happened, they're still Sooner fans, and they'll stick with their team. (relax, Sooners -- this was just an example to make a point. Nobody's putting you in the Mountain West (yet!))

But it could work. It'd suck for the bad teams, but then the little guys have a chance. And the payoff of a playoff (I'll get to that later) makes up for it.

A little soccer background -- and why this is important

I know -- you're thinking, "WTF? Soccer?!?! I thought this was about college football." Well, it is. But some soccer info and background is important here, and I'm blatantly stealing this for my college football proposal. And this knowledge is a crucial piece.

As virtually every suburban kid in the '80s, I played soccer as a boy. And as many, I stopped at about age 12, disowned it, and never really paid attention again. But I'm a big sports fan, and when an event as important as the World Cup comes around -- it's only the most watched sporting event -- I kinda consider it my responsibility as a sports fan to at least pay attention. I've done this for several World Cups. But it never really stuck, and I'd ignore it for the next 4 years, like most Americans.

For whatever reason, while watching the most recent World Cup in 2006, I really grew to appreciate the game. I wanted to know more about it. So I became a fan. Did a little research, started going to some Kansas City Wizards games, and enjoyed that too. Did a little more research, started casually following European Soccer, got more into it, picked a team to root for* ('cause sports are SO much more fun when you have someone to root for/against). And it just snowballed. And now I watch a LOT of soccer. It's just perfect on weekend mornings -- instead of watching the same stupid story on SportsCenter for the 15th time, getting more on the steroid witch hunt, following every move of the drama queen Brett Favre, etc., I watch live English Premier League (EPL) soccer. I'm going to use English soccer as my reference point for this exercise, though most countries use a similar system.

*Arsenal. For those curious, I chose Arsenal. And this is my obligatory citation of Joe Posnanski for using the Posterisk. I'll try not to make too much of a habit of it.

This is long-winded. My apologies. I do that sometimes.

The more I watched and learned (I was totally green about European Soccer, as I'm sure most Americans are), the more fascinated I became. In short, there are 20 teams; each team plays every other team home-and-away (for fairness), and there's no playoff. Whoever ends up in first place wins the league -- it's that gloriously simple. And I love it -- whoever's best over the course of the equitably-scheduled season wins. No Cinderella runs to a title by a sub-.500 team. The best team wins.

But there's so much more. The top 4 teams in the league qualify for the UEFA Champions League -- basically a giant playoff to find out who is the best team in all of Europe, even though there are many, many different leagues. More on that later.

I was most fascinated by the concept of relegation and promotion. Info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relegation_and_promotion. In short, the "minor leagues," if you will, of soccer (again, using England as an example) are independent teams from the Premier League teams -- they're not affiliated like our minor league baseball teams are with their MLB parent clubs. And there's no draft (which makes European soccer much like college football -- light bulb moment #1 for Dan) -- teams recruit and buy/sign who they please. But if they do well enough, they can work their way up the ladder and replace the crappiest teams from the division above. Fantastic concept.

One of the things I HATE about several leagues (NBA -- I'm looking in your direction) is that once a team is out of it, they tank. There are no 2 ways about it. Despite the draft lottery, a bad team mails it in, mildly injured players are suddenly out for the season, and the competition sucks out loud. But what if finishing on the bottom of the league meant you got kicked out of the league? All of a sudden thing are much more interesting, and everyone gives a crap. And Isiah Thomas would have been fired from New York MUCH sooner.

In the EPL, the bottom 3 teams are relegated, and 3 teams from the division below (the Championship League) take their place. There are many, many levels, so it's theoretically possible for a group of friends from a bar to start a team, keep climbing the ladder, and eventually end up playing in the same league as Manchester United. Theoretically.

But what this means is that there's passion on both ends of the standings. As of now (May 15), in the EPL, everyone has 2 games left, and the title is all but decided. Manchester United only needs to win/tie one of their remaining games, or if Liverpool doesn't win both, it's all over. But the interest is at the bottom of the league, where 5 teams are fighting like hell not to end up in the bottom 3, and thus demoted. Great drama. And it doesn't matter who you are (Newcastle -- hello!), if you aren't good enough to finish in the top 85% of the league, adios! These teams do anything but mail it in.

I can't emphasize how much I love this concept, and was thinking how cool it'd be if it was put in place in the States. But it's not really feasible in pro sports because of expansion fees, drafts, the fact that if, say, the Memphis Grizzlies, were relegated, their crowds would go from embarrassing to non-existent.

But this concept would be perfect for college football for many, many reasons. I'll cover that later (this post is long enough already).

And the top 4 teams -- remember those? They advance to the Champions League, which is a different but parallel competition played during the next season (info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Champions_League), and is somewhat the basis of my playoff proposal.

More in the next post.

Intro

Hi.

I'm not sure what's really going to become of this. But yesterday, I had pretty much the best idea of my life. In my humble opinion, I am now the smartest person alive. Because I have fixed College Football. Can this actually happen? Who knows -- it'd take a lot of people with different agendas agreeing on a lot of things, with lots of money and power at stake. But I'm an optimist.

I have no idea if anyone will even read this, care, agree, disagree, or hate me. Probably if enough people see this, all of those.

A little background -- I'm just a normal guy. Big sports fan, tons of sports, live & die with my alma mater (mostly die -- they disappoint often. The school? Kansas State University). I have a job in IT, but despite that, this is my first real shot at blogging, so I'm sure there will be mistakes aplenty. So please bear with me.

I could go on, but I'm going to shut up and get to the good stuff. I think I have a really good idea here, one which I've never heard -- or heard anything remotely like it. Similar proposals probably exist somewhere, but I've not heard them.

Anyway, on to the content. Let me know your thoughts!

-Dan