College football needs an overhaul. There are too many meaningless bowl games played just for money.
The most recent example was last night’s Frisco Bowl between Ohio University and San Diego State University. The payout was $750,000 for a game that reported 11,000 in attendance but appeared to be much less than that during the 27-0 win by the Bobcats.
This game should never have been played. SDSU lost four of its last five games and finished the regular season with a 7-5 record. Unfortunately, this is just one case among some of the 40 bowl games played this year.
I am proposing a radical change in the college football landscape.
I would like to see eight regional conferences across the United States. Take a map and divide it into eight sections, as evenly as possible, that would be made up of the 130 Division I programs in existence today. The eight regions would be responsible for having 15 to 18 teams and they would work out the scheduling, their own regional championship, and decide who would get to be involved in the National College Football Playoff.
They can have divisions in their region, but only one team can be the regional winner and advance. The winner from each region would be sent to the playoffs and if there were any controversy over that, they can look to their own region for answers. If you don’t win your region, you simply don’t advance to the next level.
This would also eliminate the need for a national committee to select the worthy teams to be put into the playoff format. The teams that don’t make it to the playoff can be invited to the meaningless bowl games and claim that as a trophy of their season.
The final eight teams would be put into a playoff system based on national rankings and all games played at one site, Topeka, Kansas. Topeka is in the center of the United States and this would eliminate a lot of the unfair advantage associated with some football programs during bowl season.
When the Rose Bowl is played and the USC is playing, it is a home game for the Trojans, which has happened multiple times.
Or if Miami is playing in the Orange Bowl, this is also a home game for the Hurricanes. Virtually the same scenario unfolds for LSU at the Sugar Bowl. If SMU were to rise again to its glory in the 1980s, the Mustangs would have the same edge at the Cotton Bowl.
It is an unfair advantage that gets overlooked now because of revenue and venues available. The football stadium would be paid for by the 130 Division I programs based on a percentage of the average revenue they would attract.
The teams that make the most, would pay the most and the teams that don’t generate as much would be responsible for paying less. It should not fall on the taxpayers to be responsible for building a stadium that the football teams profit from.
Other issues that would need to be addressed are the independent teams, most notably Notre Dame, TV contracts, and conference alignments.
New conference alignments would make more sense, create immediate rivalries, and eliminate ridiculously long trips for conference games like West Virginia being in the Big 12 and traveling halfway across the country for league games.
Television contracts would be a major stumbling block, especially for ESPN (because it owns rights to the SEC) or FOX (which owns the BIG 10 championship game), not to mention the conference networks, like The Big Ten Network, etc.
However, new contracts would generate new revenue, especially with more emphasis on the eight regions.
Independent teams would have to join their regional conference, not one of their choosing, if they want to be a part of the college football scene. If they don’t join, they can form their own club and do a barnstorming tour as the baseball players in the early part of the 20 th century used to do.
This will eliminate them from any bowl game, the national championship, or any football awards that are handed out. If they don’t belong, then they won’t be included in any of it.
The divisions would look like this:
Matt Phillips
Newark, Ohio
