The First Step is Admitting You Have A Problem
And holy shit, CFB do we have a problem. Ever since the end of bowl season, I’ve been hung up on what I’ve been calling “The UCF Problem.” If you haven’t heard, there’s minor contention about Alabama’s CFP victory and UCF’s undefeated season.
So what’s the problem? It’s easy to say that the problem is an overeager fanbase, or negligible media hype that will dissipate in the next couple weeks. But those explanations don’t get to the heart of the issue. The issue is an institutional lack of access to success and money in college football.
Think of college football like any business: there’s a front and back end. For every game we view, schools get paid. High level D-1 programs are paid more, because they’re on national television more. And conferences like CUSA and the MAC have to find ways to make up the difference, typically with odd scheduling, like weeknight games and sacrificial lamb match-ups such as Oklahoma at UTEP.
You Remember the BCS, Right?
That lack of access (to success and revenue) was addressed, in part, by the BCS. The entire idea behind the BCS was to eliminate subjectivity in determining the national champion. But before the BCS could even turn 20 years old, it was gone. A benevolent overlord determining which two teams have the honor to compete for a national championship felt better than the arbitrary world we lived in before, but it got old.
And not only did it get old and unpopular, it became a legal gray area as well. If you don’t recall, toward the end of the BCS era, the Department of Justice (yes, of the United States) was questioning the legality of the BCS. It appeared that the DOJ felt that the BCS, in its nature, violated anti-trust laws. Essentially, the CFP-illuminati determining the recipients of high revenue streams seems shady at best.
Fast-forward to 2014, and we have the first College Football Playoff. A committee of coaches and administrators choose 4 teams to play for a National Championship. So we got the playoff everyone was begging for, and all was well… for about a day and a half, then everyone said, “wait, what about mid-majors?”
What about Mid-Majors, Joe?
They quickly found out that this is not March Madness; it’s really, really difficult to get into the CFP if a whole confluence of events doesn’t go your way. Not only do you have to (1) go undefeated, (2) schedule super strong out-of-conference games multiple years in advance, when all the scheduling happens (3) hope those teams don’t tank, but you also have to (4) hope for a weak field. This is outlined by Bill Connelly in a recent post.
The 2016 University of Houston and 2017 UCF teams display the discrepancies within the system, but they fail to show the dire state that non-P5 teams are in. Many teams have the NCAA equivalent of an abusive relationship; they tank year after year, yet their only revenue comes from weeknight games, low-level bowl games, and sacrificial lamb pre-season games with Alabama and Clemson.
There’s a lot of different theories on what to do–expand the playoff, do a bracket buster week, et cetera. I’d like to propose a different, radical way to solve the problem.
Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down That Wall
In Soviet Russia, football plays you. Just kidding, that’s how the NCAA operates at a profit. But seriously, let’s take a look at a crazy way to get rid of his disparity between P5 and G5 teams–to effectively tear down the wall that separates G5 from P5 play. One of the ways to do that would be to eliminate what separates high revenue teams from their peers: the conferences.
We’re not going to get rid of conferences all together in this plan. Although that sounds super fun and I’ll probably do it later. What we’re going to do today is get rid of the G5. That’s right, we’re going to dismantle the Group of 5 Conferences.
We’re keeping the AAC; for the uninitiated, that’s the conference that tends to do really well, and it’s the highest grossing G5 conference. But we’re not “keeping it” keeping it. We’re dismantling it as well, but in a different way.
Group of Five, Group No More
In this plan, we’re sending the Group of 5 teams to the FCS, where a 24-team playoff system is already used. Evidently, no team from CUSA is going to be a playoff contender anytime soon, nor does it seem likely that App State will turn their magical upsets into full season glory.
The FCS has already expanded their playoff system multiple times, and the addition of roughly 60 teams will only make it more competitive. The G5 (excluding AAC) has facilities roughly similar to those teams that tend to do well in the FCS, and you’re leveling the playing field to finally give a chance to teams like UTEP. I can’t think of a single team from the Sun Belt that will win a CFP the way it is currently structured, but every team in the Sun Belt has a shot at winning an FCS Title.
And, the FCS Playoff becomes an exponentially more compelling product when you add the mass exodus of teams from FBS. Maybe you don’t know that many people who went to North Dakota State, but everybody knows at least one person from a G5 school. A huge, 48 team playoff with March Madness style implications would be a fantastic product, even if it doesn’t involve Alabama. It’s December Debauchery, and it sounds awesome.
American Athletic Conference, Meet Your New Friends
Now, we disperse the AAC into their geographically relevant P5 conferences. The major issue facing AAC teams is essentially scheduling. They play 8 games in the AAC, and thus lack the ability to gain meaningful wins, according to the CFP Committee. But, not all of them are any good–mostly, the top 6 are football proficient, and the bottom 6 are doormats. So, Tulsa, Tulane, East Carolina and UConn get the boot and follow their G5 friends to the FCS. The rest disperse in the following manner.
The ACC gets: USF and Temple
The SEC gets: Memphis and UCF
The Big 10 gets: Navy and Cincinnati
The Big 12 gets: Houston and SMU
Now, this leaves the Pac 12 without any addition, and the smallest conference, at 12 teams, compared to the 14-16 range that most will be working with. However, this doesn’t cause any major damage, because each conference is still functioning off the divisional system, meaning that all divisional disputes will be resolved with a conference championship. This system allows the teams with the best chances, historically and presently, to compete for recruits, big bowl games, and better representation for a CFP bid.
How Would This Change My Saturday?
Well, the short answer is it wouldn’t.
The long answer is that it wouldn’t; FBS teams play FCS teams all the time in the preseason. You would still get to see tremendous games, like App State blocking the Michigan kick or Troy taking down LSU. This system simply requires the CFP committee to recognize smaller schools in smaller markets that are just as talented. It takes the burden off USF to demolish the competition and schedule Alabama just to be considered. If you root for Alabama, you don’t care whether or not Wyoming is FBS, and if you root for Wyoming, you understand that you’re never going to win a CFP the way it’s structured. This system angers nobody.
And, it would achieve a massive step forward for the NCAA–it would legitimize FCS games. It’s quite difficult to sell a product when your powerhouses are James Madison and North Dakota State. There’s nothing wrong with those schools, they just don’t have a large fanbase or alumni network. But adding 65 teams with already established markets, albeit smaller than ‘ole State U, will seriously legitimize the game. You’ll still be able to watch MACtion–because it’ll still be on weeknights, just without the guise that they could someday maybe end up on the same level as Alabama. What makes March Madness compelling is the absolute lunacy of 68 teams competing for the National Title, and a 48 team FCS playoff will have that same mystique, now with teams you’re actually interested in seeing.
I know this is a ridiculous solution to a problem that has an easy fix: expand the playoffs. But even with an 8-team playoff, I doubt a G5 team will make it. No team deserves to live in Cleveland Browns-like hell, but that’s what we’re doing to G5 teams by keeping them in the corner until they’re needed as punching bags or regretful “Cinderella” stories. You may laugh when Alabama mocks UCF for their “National Championship,” but next time you do, remember this: we never gave them the opportunity to succeed in the first place.
