Dan B.
Hall of Fame
This is an off the top of my head topic. Before we continue I want to make it clear that I agree that a playoff would be the best solution but I don't think it is possible any time soon. Also as anyone who knows my stances in politics can attest, I am fascinated with the art of compromise. That out of the way here's my proposal:
The BCS should institute a rule where a BCS conference team would have to start backups for a certain portion of every non conference game against a non BCS conference opponent -- say one quarter. The penalty would be the disqualification of the game in question from consideration in BCS statistics. I'm open to discussion on how long backups should have to start, whether both teams or just the BCS qualifying team should have to do so when playing a scrub opponent, and whether other midmajor conferences qualify for the restriction -- maybe if the midmajor team qualified for a bowl the prior year there is no restriction on playing limits for the major team. For instance if UT played UH next year they could play their starters as much as they wanted, but not against UL Monroe. I'd definitely enact that rule if the "small" team was in a BCS game themselves -- TCU wouldn't prove anything if Texas were forced to pay their backups against the Frogs' starters.
I don't think this would hurt revenue at all. College football fans love watching their backups because they only get four years to watch these guys and they know within a year or two the backup will be the star. Spring scrimmages sell out all over the place. Plus the games are usually on Pay Per View or subscription cable anyway.
It would impact the Heisman in some cases, but frankly the players getting hurt would be playing on teams that scheduled cupcake opponents anyway -- sort of a built in strength of schedule penalty in their statistics. On the plus side of that if a middle of the road team in a major conference wanted to boost an individual player's statistics as well as their team's strength of schedule they would schedule more major teams from small conferences. Overall I think there wouldn't be more than a few minutes' worth of difference when comparing players and you could scale the playing time mandate to reduce or increase its effect. I don't think it would add up to even a full game cumulatively but I admit I haven't done any math on it. Some would also be mitigated by conference championship games where teams with players that may have missed playing time get an extra game to pad their stats. The middle of the road teams scheduling real opponents may also find that they have a battle ready team capable of tougher conference play and their own Heisman hopeful gets the extra time against legit opponents in addition to a potential conference championship berth.
Overall I would think that while you still probably wouldn't get a lot more of the huge schools scheduling games against Utah and BYU you might get a lot more games against decent opponents in major conferences as they try to pad their own stats. This would provide a better gauge of how good many of the teams they schedule really are IMO. You'd also have a lot more mutual opponents which I know the computer system uses.
You would also have a larger body of work when considering starters and schemes, which I think some coaches might like. There's probably a few good reasons they would hate it, but I can't think of any right now. It's basically in part a scaled down full price NFL preseason game in college for the coach and AD. Whether we like paying for preseason I kind of think coaches are ok with it. For all the inherent unfairness (again mitigated somewhat by the inherent shorter career of a collegiate athlete) in the NFL preseason games they are still preferable to non conference college games the way we play them IMO. Another plus for coaches is that they can stick with their scheme without being accused of running up the score if they keep their same game plan every down. That might hold a lot of appeal for some coaches who think they can plug and play anyone and get good results.
There would be an appeal for freshmen in that they would be guaranteed playing time at major schools, which I suppose upon reflection could be one possible flaw in that it would entice them to go to major schools and forego scholarships at smaller ones. Although it ain't like they are skipping out on the big schools as is and they would not exactly hurt for playing time at the small school either -- where they would likely play the whole game (or at least the lion's share of it). This also would give big schools an incentive to support it.
I realize this is just a lot of complicated BS that is going to be factored into a frigging vote which as I said I would prefer never occur. But seeing as how the Bowl system is so unnecessarily convoluted as is, I say what's one more layer?
This really is a spur of the moment idea for me and I'm curious what holes there are in it. It's great if everyone thinks it's flawless as is, but I'm not going to get defensive if anyone can shoot it down. I could easily have missed some obvious reason that it would never work. I'm curious: what do y'all think?
The BCS should institute a rule where a BCS conference team would have to start backups for a certain portion of every non conference game against a non BCS conference opponent -- say one quarter. The penalty would be the disqualification of the game in question from consideration in BCS statistics. I'm open to discussion on how long backups should have to start, whether both teams or just the BCS qualifying team should have to do so when playing a scrub opponent, and whether other midmajor conferences qualify for the restriction -- maybe if the midmajor team qualified for a bowl the prior year there is no restriction on playing limits for the major team. For instance if UT played UH next year they could play their starters as much as they wanted, but not against UL Monroe. I'd definitely enact that rule if the "small" team was in a BCS game themselves -- TCU wouldn't prove anything if Texas were forced to pay their backups against the Frogs' starters.
I don't think this would hurt revenue at all. College football fans love watching their backups because they only get four years to watch these guys and they know within a year or two the backup will be the star. Spring scrimmages sell out all over the place. Plus the games are usually on Pay Per View or subscription cable anyway.
It would impact the Heisman in some cases, but frankly the players getting hurt would be playing on teams that scheduled cupcake opponents anyway -- sort of a built in strength of schedule penalty in their statistics. On the plus side of that if a middle of the road team in a major conference wanted to boost an individual player's statistics as well as their team's strength of schedule they would schedule more major teams from small conferences. Overall I think there wouldn't be more than a few minutes' worth of difference when comparing players and you could scale the playing time mandate to reduce or increase its effect. I don't think it would add up to even a full game cumulatively but I admit I haven't done any math on it. Some would also be mitigated by conference championship games where teams with players that may have missed playing time get an extra game to pad their stats. The middle of the road teams scheduling real opponents may also find that they have a battle ready team capable of tougher conference play and their own Heisman hopeful gets the extra time against legit opponents in addition to a potential conference championship berth.
Overall I would think that while you still probably wouldn't get a lot more of the huge schools scheduling games against Utah and BYU you might get a lot more games against decent opponents in major conferences as they try to pad their own stats. This would provide a better gauge of how good many of the teams they schedule really are IMO. You'd also have a lot more mutual opponents which I know the computer system uses.
You would also have a larger body of work when considering starters and schemes, which I think some coaches might like. There's probably a few good reasons they would hate it, but I can't think of any right now. It's basically in part a scaled down full price NFL preseason game in college for the coach and AD. Whether we like paying for preseason I kind of think coaches are ok with it. For all the inherent unfairness (again mitigated somewhat by the inherent shorter career of a collegiate athlete) in the NFL preseason games they are still preferable to non conference college games the way we play them IMO. Another plus for coaches is that they can stick with their scheme without being accused of running up the score if they keep their same game plan every down. That might hold a lot of appeal for some coaches who think they can plug and play anyone and get good results.
There would be an appeal for freshmen in that they would be guaranteed playing time at major schools, which I suppose upon reflection could be one possible flaw in that it would entice them to go to major schools and forego scholarships at smaller ones. Although it ain't like they are skipping out on the big schools as is and they would not exactly hurt for playing time at the small school either -- where they would likely play the whole game (or at least the lion's share of it). This also would give big schools an incentive to support it.
I realize this is just a lot of complicated BS that is going to be factored into a frigging vote which as I said I would prefer never occur. But seeing as how the Bowl system is so unnecessarily convoluted as is, I say what's one more layer?
This really is a spur of the moment idea for me and I'm curious what holes there are in it. It's great if everyone thinks it's flawless as is, but I'm not going to get defensive if anyone can shoot it down. I could easily have missed some obvious reason that it would never work. I'm curious: what do y'all think?
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