Wow, that’s a pretty serious title. I will be honest with you; this post won’t be that serious. There may be some serious parts of it but for the most part it will be quite a bit of ranting and raving. Wait, don’t go! OK it will be very informative (I hope) and fun to read (I hope).
Anyway, this is a list of things I would do or want to change if I had the power to do so. Again, nothing really that serious. I won’t talk about all the war and famine and serious world issues because we have various news channels to put their political spin on them. Why pile on? OK here we go:
- In OT, they should start farther back than the 25-yard line. Remember, this is a college football-centric blog. So it makes sense to start with a college football request. I enjoy the college football overtime. Many hate it, but I enjoy it. I have never been a fan of the NFL-style overtime (although they have made it better with the idea that you can only win on the first possession with a TD). Saying that, I think having the offense start on the 25 is dumb. Even if they moved it back to the 30 it would be better. The fact that they can hit a field goal on the first play the majority of the time makes it a bit too easy. Moving it back means it’s less automatic. Then again, we are talking about college kickers so sometimes starting at the 4 would be problematic.
- Stop time after EVERY first down makes the game a little longer than most can handle. Some college games blast past the three-and-a-half-hour mark and to be honest I am not liking it. I love college football but this is getting a little crazy. I know the heads of college football (the oh-so-fabulous NCAA) are looking at changing this. Maybe making it so this only happens in the last five minutes of the half or something like that. Anything to change this, even slightly, would be appreciated by many…especially fans at the games.
- Three–hour TV windows are dumb. What TV exec greenlights this shit? When was the last time a college football game finished well before three hours? Hell, I’m sure even the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest scoreless shitfest from this past season was just over the 3 hour mark at the end of regulation time. Three-hour TV windows do not work in college football and really, even if there’s a big rule change (see #2), it still won’t change that.
- Can we stop with the games against FCS schools outside of the first month? Or first four weeks or whatever. I don’t mind the games early on in the season. I can totally understand that. Allows some of the better teams a game to help them gear up for the real competition and gives FCS teams money they sorely need to keep their football programs not just afloat, but thriving (as some do…you’d be surprised). But when some conferences (*cough*SEC*cough*) schedule games against FCS teams in the middle of November, I get pretty pissed. What a waste. And the worst part is that some of these games end up as one of the 25-30 games we get up here. Either force teams to schedule these games in the first four or five weeks of the season or just start the process of Division 4 right now. Saying that…
- Start Division 4 right now. Or soon. It’s about time this happens. Take the Power Five conferences, add a few teams who probably should be there (Boise State, BYU, Cincinnati, etc.), and just have your own bowls and own eight-team playoff tournament. This allows the Sisters of the Poor Group of Five conferences to battle for their own title. And last time I checked, some FCS teams draw quite a few fans so don’t give me that crap that lower-level schools don’t take the sport seriously.
- Is it about time that CIS teams move south so to speak? Simon Fraser is D-II. I know that other schools have at least thought of it. If we still saw CIS football on TV it may be different but the OUA has been all but eliminated from TV and the other conferences only get spot coverage. And yes, TV is slowly becoming a dinosaur but live sports still reign supreme on TV. Until that changes, it is important for sports to be on TV. Anyway, now that Rogers is going to have a 12-year NHL-gasm, CIS football has been dropped to the farthest of backburners. Maybe it is time for schools to think about joining the NCAA.
- Let us all be able to get the ESPNs, FOX Sports 1, etc. I know, I know. People think you’d pay more if we went the pick n’ pay option. I truly believe that Rogers, Bell, et al will go this route in the next year or two. If they want to stay relevant, Shomi and CraveTV are only the tips of the iceberg. Pick n’ pay is needed. The problem is, I would want access to more channels. See, I don’t care if I am paying just as much (or a little bit more) for TV if I am getting exactly what I want. The ESPNs I can understand not having. One, they have a stake in TSN (ESPN Canada) and two, we can get the college football games we normally don’t get by buying a college football package. But we don’t get FOX Sports One and because Rogers owns the rights to show FOX college football games in Canada (ostensibly so TSN doesn’t purchase them and that’s the only reason) means we don’t get those games. If I want to watch college football I should get the option to watch whichever game I want. Same should go for any other sport, college or pro, as long as you pay for it.
- Do not put out the CFP poll until the bowl games are being selected. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that The Committee, in their infinite wisdom, put TCU in the three-spot going into the last week. Then they blew out Iowa State and somehow fell out of the top four. Stupid. If they had been in fourth then there would have been much less of an uproar. I get that putting the poll out there in the last month of the season gives everyone in the college football world something to talk about. The thing is, they already had something to talk about. Everyone even remotely involved in college football at ESPN showed the entire sports-watching universe the four teams they would put in at any time. So it’s not like they didn’t have something to talk about. Making The Committee’s decisions public before the end of the season made The Committee look like shit in a way. We already have one shitty group involved in college football and that’s the NCAA; we don’t need to pile more on especially when all they did was their job and many wanted to criticize them for it.
I probably have many other ideas but as of right now I can’t think of them. There are many other great ideas for college football as well but we have to be careful what we wish for sometimes. Remember, we had to live through the BCS (which was marginally better than the system before it but rife with flaws that were exposed pretty quickly).
I will do another mock draft in the next couple weeks. Last year I did a post on changes to what we would see broadcast on Canadian TV because of the advent of the Rogers Mega NHL contract. There shouldn’t be many changes this upcoming year. I still hope Bell and Rogers will add ESPNews and perhaps some ESPN3 games to the package but I won’t hold my breath. As much as I complain, I am pleased that I, at least, can get many more college football games to watch that I wouldn’t normally be able to receive. If you are a true college football fan and actually have the opportunity to watch a good amount of college football on Saturdays then you should get this package (despite the price in some cases).
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