Wednesday, January 10, 2018

[fun] College Football Ladder

PROPOSAL! Create a league atop college football made up of teams winning the conferences year to year. Two from each "power 5" and three from the rest of the country. The lowest-finishing team in each conference moves out, conference winner moves in. Winner of this new league = National Champion.

College Football is a behemoth in the United States. In Division 1 there are 130 teams alone. It does not need to change to make any more money. But I do think change is on the horizon. Leagues are expanding across the country and everyone wants to see the big schools playing each other week in, week out. How long that takes? No idea, but it's moving that direction.

Important note about me: I'm an outsider to college football, admittedly. Neither of the colleges I went to (Virginia Wesleyan, Campbell University) had college football (soccer, believe it or not, was the homecoming game at both). I am a soccer guy, but the idea of working something like this is interesting to me because of the "club" type nature of college athletics.

There is something that has always bothered me about college football. The choosing of a national champion. You can't argue that the controversy surrounding the process of picking on is part of the appeal, but for me, it could be something much more clear and much more interesting.

Why not take two teams from each of the top five conferences (65 total members) and three teams from remaining six (65 total members) and drop them in a league in and of themselves?

Next year that would look like (lets something fun like SUPERLEAGUE):

ACC: Clemson Tigers
ACC: Miami Hurricanes
Big 12: Oklahoma Sooners
Big 12: TCU Horned Frogs
B1G: Ohio State Buckeyes
B1G: Wisconsin Badgers
Pac 12: Stanford Cardinal
Pac 12: USC Trojans
SEC: Georgia Bulldogs
SEC: Auburn Tigers
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The final three spots would go to the top three teams based on existing polls at the end of the season for the following conferences: The American, C-USA, Independent Schools, MAC, MW and Sunbelt.
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1. University of Central Florida
2. Memphis University
3. Boise State Broncos

Some bullet points - on schedule:

- All-in-all, that gives you a league of 13 teams for a 12 game schedule
- Most conferences play a 13 or 14 game schedule (including bowl game)
- 12 game schedule would allow for 2 games, whatever the university wants (rivalry game, cream puffs)
- No bowl game for teams in this conference

Who stays in, who goes:

- Goes: The team finishing lowest in standings in each conference
- In: Winner of each top five conference, top-ranked 3 among the rest

Why it works:

- Keeps the schedule fresh, determines a true champion
- Maintains integrity of conferences and bowl games (which would be for all teams outside SUPERLEAGUE)
- Every game in SUPERLEAGUE would be essentially a bowl game

There you go. Those are my thoughts. My brain needed a break from US Soccer thoughts for a bit.

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