Equality for All, Well Almost All

Now that the college bowl season has come and gone. Lets take a look back at it to see what we have learned.

In 2006 there were 119 D1A teams that competed in football. There were also 32 bowl games over the holiday. That means that 64 out of 119 teams made it to the post season. And of those 64 teams that played in post season bowl games, 43 teams were from the 6 conferences that have ties to the BCS and the other 21 teams came from the 6 NON-BCS conferences that have been determined by the sportswriters and other so called experts that they are not worthy of the chance to play for a national title.

Twelve Division 1 conferences with 119 football teams. The elite 6 conferences have 65 teams competing in football. That means that 54 teams that play at the highest level of college football, Division 1, are not allowed to contend for a national championship.

Do you see a problem? How can the NCAA and College Football truly say that it has a National Champion when over 45% of the teams that contribute to D1 football are not even allowed the chance to play. How are they suppose to recruit players to their programs when the kids know that they have no chance of even being involved in the process.

This is America, the United States of America. The land of the free and the home of the brave. Where anyone can achieve greatness if they apply themselves. Well except those who play for those 54 teams. They have been deemed unworthy before they even set one foot on the football field.

If this country and the NCAA ever wants to have a true national champion in college football then they have to give the opportunity to all teams to compete for the title. That way the teams that are playing their best at the end of the season will win the title. Not the teams that someone decided was better at the start of the season and then did enough not to screw it up at the end.

Look at Boise State and Louisville. In the past 4 years those teams have played and beaten some of the best teams in the country. Louisville had to move to another conference to get the chance to prove itself. Boise State has stayed in the WAC and this season went 13-0.

Not enough people say.

Boise State beat six bowl teams in that 13 win season and a Fiesta Bowl win over mighty Oklahoma. Hawaii, San Jose State, Nevada, Utah, Oregon State and Oklahoma. Oklahoma played 9 bowl teams in its 14 game schedule but part of that is because the Big12 gets 8 teams in bowl games while the WAC gets only 4.

Louisville won the Orange bowl this year over Wake Forest in going 12-1.

A true playoff system would not be that hard to set up but it would take some compromises from conferences. In my system, conferences would be combined and eliminated in order establish the basis for the system.

Ten conferences with 12 teams each or something similar. Each conference would have 2 divisions like the ACC or Big 12 have now. At the end of the season you have 24 division champions. Those division champions play each other to determine conference champions (round 1). The 12 conference champions are then set up into a bracket with the teams with the 4 best overall records receiving second round byes. The next 8 teams play second round games, those 4 winners play third round games vs the 4 second round bye teams. That gets you to the final four (round 4) and then the finals (round 5).

Five rounds of playoff games that involved 24 teams in 23 games that finishes with the two teams that have earned their way into the finals playing for a national championship. No voting, no bubble teams getting left out because some committee did not like them. Just the best teams playing each other for the title.

It would take 5 weeks, no longer then the bowl season takes now. Ohio State did not play for 6 weeks prior to the BCS game. I bet they were practicing though. The argument that it would take teams away from the classroom to long does not fly because the so called smarter schools that play in D1AA, D2 and D3 have a playoff system.

So lets just cut the crap and get to a system that gives us a true champion and not a paper champion.