College Sports Need to Take a Page Out of Each Other’s Book

Call me crazy, but I have feeling this guy would be willing to travel to a college football playoff. Looks like he's already got an endorsement deal with Hertz.

This article is courtesy of Ryan West of West Sports Report.  Ryan can be reached with questions or comments at westsportsreport@gmail.com

College sports have taken a huge jump from where they were years ago. Football is a lot more physically demanding; basketball has become worldwide. But on the collegiate level, both of those sports have their problems. I’m here to show how they can fix their problems – by taking a look at each other’s sport.

First up: college basketball. Basketball’s biggest problems are the problems that come with recruiting. With the infamous 1-year rule (which will be referred as the Makes No Sense Rule from now on), most programs only plan for just that, one year. If they can get that one big name athlete who can deliver a championship to their program, then why not?

The Makes No Sense Rule, which was supposed to help the sport, has hindered it completely. Instead of more parity in the sport, it has caused top programs to always have good years as they get the top recruits. The Makes No Sense Rule also allows players to “rush” their decision to not get a degree and to go into the NBA. Lastly, it forces teams and NBA scouts to hurriedly figure the potential of these same players, and in the end could cost their organization money — a lot of it.

In steps my idea to end this rule. How about NCAA and NBA executives get together and watch more of that sport that is on at the end of the summer and goes through the entire fall season – football.

Collegiate football and the NFL require the players to be 3 years removed from high school before even attempting to enter professionally. This allows these kids to mature and decide if they really want to do this. It allows them to develop their bodies into what the NFL will ask them to do for years. Furthermore, it helps out the programs by allowing them to have an idea of when their players will be leaving.

College basketball doesn’t have a lot of problems, but this rule is by far it’s biggest. If this rule takes effect, college basketball instantly gets better. This 3-year rule allows coaches to plan for when their players could potentially leave. It allows recruiting to be fairer as not all big name schools can hand out new scholarships every year. It would also bring more revenue to the sport. Could you imagine Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard playing 3 years in college? Only if we could do what Cher always wanted. Finally, it gives NBA scouts more resources to use and assess the talent.

Outside of the 500+ words I’ve used to criticize NCAA basketball, I completely love the sport. I think it is one of the most organized and competitive sports that is played at the collegiate level. Considering the problems it has, NCAA football has the biggest problem of all, its postseason set up. It is the only head to head sport that doesn’t use some sort of playoff system.

NCAA football executives seem to think that their BS system, also known as the BCS, works out the “best possible scenario.” Really? I mean…REALLY? Do they watch their own sport? Do they see the constant controversy this causes? I’m thinking not.

Football needs to look at how much people follow March Madness. ESPN alone had how many playoff brackets? 4 million? Ok, now considering football fans are more diehard than basketball, imagine the results. Imagine the ratings. Imagine the new heights the sport would reach. The possibilities are endless.

My playoff system isn’t perfect, but it is far better than whatever they want to call the system they have now. People use the renewal of the BCS contract as an excuse. Well, they can keep the BCS contract. We’ll just use it in a different way: to organize the seeding of a playoff bracket.

Here is my proposed plan: 12 teams play in the final playoff bracket – 6 teams get auto-bids from the BCS conference, and the final 6 teams get the bids from the BCS rankings. From there, the top 4 teams get first round byes while the final 8 play in the first round.

The biggest argument against the playoff systems is the locations of the games. My proposed plan would have each “round” be hosted at a site of the BCS bowl games and rotate them each year. For example, round 1 would be the Fiesta Bowl, round 2 would be the Orange Bowl, and etc.

People can argue the travel issues and the fact they wouldn’t be able to fill the seats. Is there a problem in basketball? I don’t think I ever see an empty seat in the arenas. And in college football, most fans don’t ever get to see their team play in a bowl because there aren’t enough tickets. This would give more opportunity. Like I stated above, football fans are more committed than basketball fans, so I don’t think it would be a problem at all. They could even set it up like basketball does it.

Instead of having 4-6 weeks off to prepare for bowl games, teams would get 1 week off and then the playoff system would get underway. The first two weekends would have 4 games in 2 days (2 per day). After that, the third round would have 2 games, one on Friday and one on Saturday. Then the championship game would be 1 week later.

So if these high paid and knowledgeable executives could take a chance and check out each other’s sports, maybe even talk to each other, they could probably fix their problems.

And if they can’t get it done, maybe they should let me do it. Or the other millions of fans that want this done.  At least then something would happen.