College Football Leadership Must Protect The Regular Season And Restore The Bowl Season
People my age and older remember the golden era of the college football bowl season. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I sure miss it. I also believe there’s a way to bring that back, and make the game even better!
Back then, the entire college football season was geared towards playing for a bowl. My generation and older generations remember watching Big Ten teams grab roses after games in which they clinched a Rose Bowl berth.
The bowl games were incredibly important because the big bowl games played a huge role in who won the national championship.
Over the last couple of decades we’ve seen the bowl season become far less important for two reasons. The first I can live with, and that is the over saturation of bowl games. I’m all for granting more opportunities for student-athletes to play in bowl games, and for the vast majority of seniors it’s their last chance to play football.
The other is the national championship field has been diminished in the last couple decades, first with the BCS and now with the College Football Playoff. By the end of the regular season you know the two (BCS) or four (CFP) teams that have a chance to play for a title.
For many college football fans those are the only games that matter, and games like the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and others aren’t as important if they aren’t part of the CFP rotation. For the “big time” programs, not making the playoff all but means your season is over, and the rest of the bowl season isn’t nearly as exciting or enticing.
Bowl games are important, despite what ESPN and others continue to say without saying it. It's great for players, who get one last chance at playing the game, and playing as a team. It's great for fans, who get to celebrate the season in some fashion. It's great for the game because we get to see conferences that often don't do battle much get to do battle.
I’m not anti-playoff. In fact, I’m pro-playoff. I’m a fan of the four-team playoff. My fear, however, is that the CFP diminishes the importance of the rest of the bowl season. My bigger fear is that once the CFP expands it will not only destroy the bowl season, it will cheapen the regular season.
College football has the best regular season in all of sports. What other sport can you lose only one game and miss the playoff? What other sport can a bad day in the middle of October cost you a chance at a championship? That was the situation that Ohio State went through in 2018, and that’s the beauty of the current four-team set up …. sort of.
There is simply too much money in the playoff system for the NCAA or the conferences to give up expansion, so the question is how can we make expansion work in a way that doesn’t cheapen the regular season and further diminish the bowl season?
Simply expanding the playoff in its current form will not only further diminish the bowl season, it will cheapen the regular season, which hurts the game. I’m all for networks and the NCAA finding ways to make more money, but not if it’s going to hurt the game. Protecting the game should always be what the networks, administrators, coaches and college football media should prioritize. I believe, however, there is a path towards “expansion” that actually improves the game.
If the leaders in charge were able to think outside of the box and weren’t so laser focused on the big pay check offered by playoff expansion, they’d realize there’s an opportunity out there to create more money without pure expansion of the current system. There is risk, of course, but it would ultimately be a great thing for the sport, and the potential reward could be even greater.
I will provide my proposal in an article coming up later today, but first I needed to establish why it matters that we consider proposals that will not only expand the number of teams competing for a title in the postseason, but also protect the regular season and ideally enhance the bowl season.
Check back later for my full proposal on how to restore the bowl season while protecting the regular season and expanding the number of teams that have a chance for the national championship.
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