How to fix College Football?

Polish Leppy 22

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I'll double down on not expanding the playoff. The semifinal games tell us most years we don't even need 4. It's usually two. And that makes the NY6 bowl games more attractive like they were pre playoff days.
 

Polish Leppy 22

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I'll double down on not expanding the playoff. The semifinal games tell us most years we don't even need 4. It's usually 2 that are clear cut. And that makes the NY6 bowl games more attractive like they were pre playoff days.
 

GowerND11

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I'll double down on not expanding the playoff. The semifinal games tell us most years we don't even need 4. It's usually two. And that makes the NY6 bowl games more attractive like they were pre playoff days.

I'll go a step further in saying we could scrap the playoff and it wouldn't make a difference 9 years out of 10. The playoffs were a money grab and a response to people bitching and moaning.

Fixing college football, to me, is easy in theory; though I fear since we already opened the toothpaste, we can't put it back in the tube.
  1. I would actively encourage many teams to leave their conferences, larger independent numbers is better. Therefore, conferences would have a max cap of 12.
  2. I would reintroduce the rule that you can only play one FCS team every 4 years. No reason for Alabama to play the Citadel, Chattanooga, etc. every year.
  3. Bring back the BCS poll. Tweak it for some inconsistencies, but it was pretty accurate, and didn't change its own rules, or justify who is in the Top 4 each year to fit an agenda.*
  4. Bring back belly jerseys for defensive linemen.
  5. Allow hand fighting through the route between DBs and WRs.
  6. Reduce the bowl game numbers to the number we had this year (25). No need for 41 bowl games.
  7. NIL is a must, and some kind of oversight committee needs to be created by the NCAA, and, much like how every school has a compliance office, they should have a NIL office.
*Yes they get it right more than not, but they are constantly shifting what measurements they use to determine the top 4. One year it's the eye test, the next it's SOS, then it's quality loss. No consistency.
 
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Irishnuke

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Rogue219

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The SEC should have to go to some kind of Squid Game type of format. Then we see how great they really are and how much "more" it really "matters."
 

Polish Leppy 22

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Here's what I think college football needs to do:

1) Put some sort of limits on the transfer portal. For example, a kid can only enter the portal between x month and y month (not midseason).

2) NIL isn't going anywhere, but it should be monitored to a degree. I don't have the perfect solution for this one. Texas A&M signing 14 top 100 recruits or whatever it was smells a lot like Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss days.

3) Just as there's a scholarship limit, D1 schools should be limited to how many "analysts" they can have on staff. Just like coaches and GA's are limited.

4) Get rid of the early signing day and push it back to one in early February. That's why crazy coaching moves like Kelly to LSU and Riley to USC happened in November...the early signing day in December. You can maintain mid year enrollment, and give the kids an out clause if there's a coaching change in between and they enrolled early.

5) I'm half joking, but get Vandy out of the SEC. They should trade spots with Clemson or F$U.

6) For all things sacred, do not expand the playoff. If Miami, Penn State, Texas, and USC are bitching about not getting in, they can get their shit together, improve recruiting, improve coaching, and do it. Don't ruin the best regular season in all of sports, and don't extend this season any longer for college kids. It's too much.

7) The national championship game needs to get moved from Monday night to Friday night. More eyeballs and no competition with NFL games. Hell, even Thursday night would be better.

8) ND needs to get rid of the ugly yellow mustard pants and play Michigan every year in week 2.

Offseason rant over.
 

Whiskeyjack

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Offseason rant over.

62tpmw.jpg
 

Ndaccountant

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Here's what I think college football needs to do:

1) Put some sort of limits on the transfer portal. For example, a kid can only enter the portal between x month and y month (not midseason).

2) NIL isn't going anywhere, but it should be monitored to a degree. I don't have the perfect solution for this one. Texas A&M signing 14 top 100 recruits or whatever it was smells a lot like Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss days.

3) Just as there's a scholarship limit, D1 schools should be limited to how many "analysts" they can have on staff. Just like coaches and GA's are limited.

4) Get rid of the early signing day and push it back to one in early February. That's why crazy coaching moves like Kelly to LSU and Riley to USC happened in November...the early signing day in December. You can maintain mid year enrollment, and give the kids an out clause if there's a coaching change in between and they enrolled early.

5) I'm half joking, but get Vandy out of the SEC. They should trade spots with Clemson or F$U.

6) For all things sacred, do not expand the playoff. If Miami, Penn State, Texas, and USC are bitching about not getting in, they can get their shit together, improve recruiting, improve coaching, and do it. Don't ruin the best regular season in all of sports, and don't extend this season any longer for college kids. It's too much.

7) The national championship game needs to get moved from Monday night to Friday night. More eyeballs and no competition with NFL games. Hell, even Thursday night would be better.

8) ND needs to get rid of the ugly yellow mustard pants and play Michigan every year in week 2.

Offseason rant over.

Texas A&M will be a powder keg waiting to explode. I doubt Jumbo has what it takes to make that work.

Love the portal idea. Once thing I would also add....do people remember years ago the whole "4 year scholarship" versus "1 year scholarship" debates? Well, my goal / idea would be to make that offer binding for the player. For example, Arch Manning may only want to sign a 1 year scholarship from school XYZ, while Tommy 3* QB will be willing to do a 1 year for a MAC school, or a 2 year to a P5 team.

I think this would help with two things. First, it would make it clear to everyone involved how committed each player is to the school and how committed the school is to the player. The one caveat would by for anyone signing a 3 or 4 year offer, they could have a player opt out after 2 years. The second thing would be more clear roster management. No more guessing who is likely to jump in the portal. You know the 20-30 guys on the roster with an expiring scholarship and can focus the attention on those individuals.
 

NDRock

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Texas A&M will be a powder keg waiting to explode. I doubt Jumbo has what it takes to make that work.

Love the portal idea. Once thing I would also add....do people remember years ago the whole "4 year scholarship" versus "1 year scholarship" debates? Well, my goal / idea would be to make that offer binding for the player. For example, Arch Manning may only want to sign a 1 year scholarship from school XYZ, while Tommy 3* QB will be willing to do a 1 year for a MAC school, or a 2 year to a P5 team.

I think this would help with two things. First, it would make it clear to everyone involved how committed each player is to the school and how committed the school is to the player. The one caveat would by for anyone signing a 3 or 4 year offer, they could have a player opt out after 2 years. The second thing would be more clear roster management. No more guessing who is likely to jump in the portal. You know the 20-30 guys on the roster with an expiring scholarship and can focus the attention on those individuals.

Honestly, all these ideas just make the players seem more “professional” and further the game that way. Guys signing 1 or 2 year “contracts”, free agency (transfer) windows. Maybe we should have a NIL “cap” on the total amount each team is allowed to make.

I want whatever rule changes help ND but I’m selfish that way.
 

NorthDakota

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Texas A&M recruiting makes more sense but not a ton more than Freeze.

Idk what they are doing, but it will ruin the game if it is allowed.
 

irishtrain

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Make the rating system be real-correct matter of fact no matter if right or wrong on 1-5 stars on kids-then limit how many 5 thru 3's you can sign keeping the top 8 teams in the country from stockpiling players-givethe rest of college football a chance-make the star rating really mean something.
 

ulukinatme

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Here's what I think college football needs to do:

1) Put some sort of limits on the transfer portal. For example, a kid can only enter the portal between x month and y month (not midseason).

2) NIL isn't going anywhere, but it should be monitored to a degree. I don't have the perfect solution for this one. Texas A&M signing 14 top 100 recruits or whatever it was smells a lot like Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss days.

3) Just as there's a scholarship limit, D1 schools should be limited to how many "analysts" they can have on staff. Just like coaches and GA's are limited.

4) Get rid of the early signing day and push it back to one in early February. That's why crazy coaching moves like Kelly to LSU and Riley to USC happened in November...the early signing day in December. You can maintain mid year enrollment, and give the kids an out clause if there's a coaching change in between and they enrolled early.

5) I'm half joking, but get Vandy out of the SEC. They should trade spots with Clemson or F$U.

6) For all things sacred, do not expand the playoff. If Miami, Penn State, Texas, and USC are bitching about not getting in, they can get their shit together, improve recruiting, improve coaching, and do it. Don't ruin the best regular season in all of sports, and don't extend this season any longer for college kids. It's too much.

7) The national championship game needs to get moved from Monday night to Friday night. More eyeballs and no competition with NFL games. Hell, even Thursday night would be better.

8) ND needs to get rid of the ugly yellow mustard pants and play Michigan every year in week 2.

Offseason rant over.

I don't know how you can control the NIL. You can report how much a kid is getting, but then they've just got bagmen to get around that again.

Short of having a draft for college, which is quite impossible and doesn't work, I don't see how you balance things out.

Hold on...maybe you do a draft actually...schools offer scholarships and if the kid is legit interested in going they accept, or if they have no desire to go to that school they decline. When it's a school's turn to pick they can choose from any kid they've offered if that kid has accepted. You may say, "Okay, but what if some kid decides it's Alabama or bust, but Alabama never uses one of their picks on him?" That's the kid's fault for limiting his chances, no different than the recruiting game today in that aspect, so it'll behoove a kid to take at least a few offers.

Obviously a draft with 120+ schools and 20+ picks would have to be different than an NFL draft. You'd almost have to break the draft up seasonally and do 30 schools at a time. Maybe take the Top 30 schools from the previous season and have them draft after the bowls in the winter, then the next 30 in the spring, and so on. Kids that don't get picked in the 1st group can still take scholarships from the next tier down. Might be a little weird cause you'll have the occasional Coastal Carolina drafting with the big boys, but keep in mind it's based on who you've offered and who has accepted. Of course there's still the option to walk on too. You'd still have transfers of course, but the school accepting the transfer would have to have the room too.

I dunno, just spit ballin'. This feels like something Mike Leach would come up with, like his 64 team college football playoff. I think it would beat the "hat dance" drama that kids have today. People love fuckin' drafts after all, and you could turn it into big event(s) each season instead of lots of little hat picking ceremonies. Kids would still get NIL, but it would be harder to stack a class and the talent would get spread out better. None of this is ever going to happen of course, just thought it'd be fun to put it down on paper.
 

Irishbounty28

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Return the scholarship cap to 105 for all teams. Let’s say 1/3 of all players signed pan out to be starter material. At the current cap that would be somewhere between 27-8 players. Bump that to 34 with a 105 limit.

It’s likely teams with hoards of 5*s have a higher hit rate than those who signed lower rated players. This gets rid of some of that advantage as only 22 players can play on offense+defense at any given time.

Just to humor me. Place 20 extra players on ND’s roster last year and Alabamas. Who benefits more? Does it mean ND wins? NO. Does it mean ND likely has 3-4 extra players who can play on Sundays in this game? I would say yea. Alabama would have those players too, but likely wouldn’t have a need to play them all.

I know the limit used to be 105 and was decreased by the NCAA. Not 100% sure why other than to benefit the same teams that reap the benefits from all changes the NCAA makes.
 
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GATTACA!

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I think the simplest solution is to make scholarships count against your future roster size regardless of where the player is playing. Texas A&M wants to pay for the number one class? Great, but if 8 of these guys transfer out after next year have fun working with 77(-8) scholarship players as your baseline for the next 3 years. Players only get removed from the cap if they graduate, are forced to quit football due to injury, or leave for the NFL.
 

ulukinatme

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I think the simplest solution is to make scholarships count against your future roster size regardless of where the player is playing. Texas A&M wants to pay for the number one class? Great, but if 8 of these guys transfer out after next year have fun working with 77(-8) scholarship players as your baseline for the next 3 years. Players only get removed from the cap if they graduate, are forced to quit football due to injury, or leave for the NFL.

Yeah, this is way simpler than my draft :laugh: Not as fun though.
 

NDRock

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How about we actually punish the schools that cheat to the point that it’s a deterrent. Seems like all the solutions are ones that affect the players. Maybe hitting the people with money and power would make a difference… yeah never mind, that’s never going to happen. No more transfers!
 

Irish#1

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Texas A&M will be a powder keg waiting to explode. I doubt Jumbo has what it takes to make that work.

Love the portal idea. Once thing I would also add....do people remember years ago the whole "4 year scholarship" versus "1 year scholarship" debates? Well, my goal / idea would be to make that offer binding for the player. For example, Arch Manning may only want to sign a 1 year scholarship from school XYZ, while Tommy 3* QB will be willing to do a 1 year for a MAC school, or a 2 year to a P5 team.

I think this would help with two things. First, it would make it clear to everyone involved how committed each player is to the school and how committed the school is to the player. The one caveat would by for anyone signing a 3 or 4 year offer, they could have a player opt out after 2 years. The second thing would be more clear roster management. No more guessing who is likely to jump in the portal. You know the 20-30 guys on the roster with an expiring scholarship and can focus the attention on those individuals.

I think you're on to something, especially if student athletes do end up becoming employees of the school. Now labor laws come into play and not every state is the same.
 

CoachB

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IMO, there are two massive problems that are going to swallow up college football if left unchecked. 1. Transferring whenever you want. 2. NIL. What's wrong with having to sit out a year when transferring? Why did they get rid of that rule? Seems like that would be a big deterrent to end this transferring madness. The other massive problem I see is NIL. I don't have a really good answer for this one. Forgive me because I haven't paid really close attention, but doesn't NIL stand for Name, image, and likeness? I wonder if there is a way where players could get paid a percentage of revenue created for these things. For example, Kevin Austin would get a percentage for every #4 jersey sold for ND. Or if the athlete was in a commerical, they get a cut of whatever the pay was. Just like a professional. It seems weird for me that these kids are getting paid NIL while they are still in high school. Isn't there a way they could be paid for what they actually produce? Just an idea. I am sure there would be some sticking points.
 

Cackalacky2.0

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Im in favor to a regionalized relegation/promotion system where the top team with best record plays in a playoff against the other regional winners to determine that levels National champion. You are South Carolina and finish bottom three you go down to lower division. You North Dakota State and finish top 3 in your region? You go up. LOL. That would be so much fun and the w-l record drives the system. No actual need for any playoff committee or rankings each year.... except for the what would be needed to sort the college in the first place to get the system going. This would blow up all non regional rivialries and independents and I dont care.
 

GowerND11

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Can we just time travel to 1987 and relive those next 20 years? Because college football was damn exciting in those 2 decades.
 

ACamp1900

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At least we all admit it is broken... for me however it feels like the thing we loved has flatlined already and the family that cares just has not yet been informed. The things needed to fix it are all actually trending in the opposite direction currently. I don't think it reveres course.
 

GATTACA!

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Im in favor to a regionalized relegation/promotion system where the top team with best record plays in a playoff against the other regional winners to determine that levels National champion. You are South Carolina and finish bottom three you go down to lower division. You North Dakota State and finish top 3 in your region? You go up. LOL. That would be so much fun and the w-l record drives the system. No actual need for any playoff committee or rankings each year.... except for the what would be needed to sort the college in the first place to get the system going. This would blow up all non regional rivialries and independents and I dont care.

This is exactly how I used to play my NCAA14 dynasties.

Big10 - MAC
Pac12 - MWC
SEC - Sun Belt
ACC - AAC
Big12 - CUSA

So much fun. Man I’m gonna have to break out my 360.
 

Whiskeyjack

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At least we all admit it is broken... for me however it feels like the thing we loved has flatlined already and the family that cares just has not yet been informed. The things needed to fix it are all actually trending in the opposite direction currently. I don't think it reveres course.

I'm not quite that cynical yet. I actually don't think there's much of a constituency for the semi-pro model, because moving in that direction will ruin everything distinctive about CFB that keeps the majority of fans coming back. It's just that our elites tend to have a very narrow view of how to "fix" things like this, so the options being discussed right now are mostly garbage.
 

GowerND11

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I'm not quite that cynical yet. I actually don't think there's much of a constituency for the semi-pro model, because moving in that direction will ruin everything distinctive about CFB that keeps the majority of fans coming back. It's just that our elites tend to have a very narrow view of how to "fix" things like this, so the options being discussed right now are mostly garbage.

I wish I was as optimistic as you. My issue is when it comes down to it we are all like frogs in a pot of water. Little bit at a time they keep changing things, and too many fans say, "Well I like football! So I will keep watching." There isn't enough of the fandom out there that will truly stand up to the greed, ESPN, ADs, etc. that this isn't what we want and we will show you it with our eyes/money.
 

ACamp1900

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I'm not quite that cynical yet. I actually don't think there's much of a constituency for the semi-pro model, because moving in that direction will ruin everything distinctive about CFB that keeps the majority of fans coming back. It's just that our elites tend to have a very narrow view of how to "fix" things like this, so the options being discussed right now are mostly garbage.

.....




tOSU by 50
 

IrishLax

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Im in favor to a regionalized relegation/promotion system where the top team with best record plays in a playoff against the other regional winners to determine that levels National champion. You are South Carolina and finish bottom three you go down to lower division. You North Dakota State and finish top 3 in your region? You go up. LOL. That would be so much fun and the w-l record drives the system. No actual need for any playoff committee or rankings each year.... except for the what would be needed to sort the college in the first place to get the system going. This would blow up all non regional rivialries and independents and I dont care.

This is absolutely crazy and will never happen for a thousand different reasons... but it would the absolute best system, barred none. You would likely need to establish 4 regions with 26 teams per region where you play a round robin 12 game schedule against your division of your region. Top schools or top division advance to a 4-team playoff, bottom three schools get relegated. Top three schools of second division get promoted.
 

GATTACA!

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This is absolutely crazy and will never happen for a thousand different reasons... but it would the absolute best system, barred none. You would likely need to establish 4 regions with 26 teams per region where you play a round robin 12 game schedule against your division of your region. Top schools or top division advance to a 4-team playoff, bottom three schools get relegated. Top three schools of second division get promoted.

Money issues between the tiers aside I think low tier 1 teams would actually benefit from being relegated. How many more tickets could Illinois sell if they were beating up on MAC teams for 2 years going 21-3 or something?
 
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