Dooley’s Dozen: 12 things that would fix college football’s problems
Now that we are well removed from the end of the college football season, the nation has turned its attention from what is wrong with college football to what is wrong with the Tay-Tay/Trav romance.
However, a lot of us are still thinking about the college game and how we can fix it.
Now there are two ways to attack the problem. We could come up with solutions or just say, “What problem?”
The numbers for the sport are at new highs whether it be ratings or attendance. Why fix what isn’t broken?
Because it’s not sustainable, is the answer you hear the most often. We do know that grandpa is yelling at the clouds about a lot of things, so let’s help him out with a Dooley’s Dozen — 12 things I would change about college football.
Shorter halftimes
Which means shorter games, which is what they do in the NFL to compact those games into the TV windows. The NFL halftimes are 12 minutes, college football is 20.
It’s way too long, especially when you can’t duck out to the bars across the street anymore.
The main reason is for the marching bands. I can live without that part of the pageantry. And my oldest daughter was in the Florida band!
But I will make it up to the band
Because it is ridiculous that some schools (I’m looking at you Texas) put the bands as close to the sun as possible. No Gator fan wants to hear “Rocky Top” or that annoying FSU chant playing. But that is a bigger part of college football than halftime shows.
It should be an NCAA rule that the band has to be in the lower bowl.
So, we have to get the band together
I have often likened the Power 5 to the Five Families. Everyone looks out for themselves and with no concerns for the other conferences.
We need to have a sit-down. And all five conferences must agree on a set of rules everyone can live by. And the referees will come out of one big pool instead of just staying in their conferences.
We need a commission
Not a committee, not a czar. Just three people in charge of the sport which we love so dearly. These three people will look out for the good of the game, which I know is a novel concept.
They will have the final say over anything, even NCAA rulings. They will basically run college football instead of college football running itself.
Tame the transfer portal
You can’t shove the clown back into the Jack-in-the-box, but you can make it better. You have to close the window that opens as soon as the season ends. They should just have one window that goes from two weeks after the season until the end of March.
Forget that these young men won’t be able to enroll early. Figure out a way to make that work. We’re not talking about student-athletes anymore.
Stop the early signing day
I’m trying to remember why we started it, but it needs to move back to February. It used to be a big deal but now it’s caught up in the middle of what will be the playoffs.
If you really want the early enrollees, you can allow them to start school in January or maybe even move signing day to the Tuesday after the national title game.
Just go ahead and start revenue sharing
It’s coming. Players are going to eventually unionize, and lawyers will collectively be bargaining contracts. Why not get ahead of it, for once? Allow the universities to contribute money to athletes based on the enormous budgets they have.
Again, we have to get everybody on the same page on this. If a conference goes rogue, it won’t work.
Expand, expand, expand
We haven’t even gotten to the first 12-team playoff and I’m already calling for it to expand. Remember in the old days when the big shots claimed the BCS was all they needed? I can’t wait to see the numbers from this new playoff and you’re not going to shrink that number.
Don’t wait so long to go the other way. Think big.
And we can still save the bowl
Not that they really need saving. The bowls are ESPN content, which makes ESPN a lot of money because they still draw better ratings than the NBA or NHL during the holidays.
But we can reduce the opt-outs by making it standard in every contract that the MVPs on offense and defense and most valuable linemen on both teams receive substantial checks from the bowls (that normally would go to the conferences).
This won’t stop the elite players from opting out, but it will reduce the number.
Cap the NIL
I’m sure you have heard this argument and I’m not sure how it would stand up in court. But if you really want to have every team play by the same rules, you can’t wait for the market to settle down, which is the common theory.
Put a lid on it and set it high enough that if you can’t afford it, that’s on you. But the amount schools are spending is obscene and was not the intention of NIL.
Instead of helping the players, they’ve turned them into mercenaries.
Make everyone play the same number of games
Now that the playoffs have expanded, every conference should have a nine-game season. I understand the complaints of the have-nots who just want to get bowl-eligible (um, is Florida in that mix?) but we can solve that problem too by getting rid of the rule that you have to win half your games.
If a bowl game would rather have 5-7 Florida than 7-5 Middle Tennessee, let them. We’re not trying to solve the Group of Five issues.
Which is why it has to happen
If we can get the five – or four – conferences together and agree on a super conference, it will be the biggest story in the history of the sport. It would be a new shine on an old pair of shoes.
We can work out the numbers, but what we would have is kind of what new NCAA president Charlie Baker is proposing. My league would have 64 teams and attendance requirements. I don’t believe in relegation, but you still have to have butts in the seats to stay in the Power One.
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