Mark Cuban & College Football

Once again, we reach the end of the college football season, and once again it is time to watch the ridiculous bombardment of meaningless bowl games which will ultimately lead up to a championship that may or may not tell us who the best team in the country is. Fortunately, the sports world's favorite billionaire Mark Cuban believes he can help out. As you already know, Cuban is exploring the possibility of giving a much needed revamping to college football. The plan, which would install a 16 team playoff, would be very tempting to schools mainly because of the average fan's interest, Cuban's deep pockets, and most importantly his willingness to spend his money. Bowl game execs could even benefit off of this if their games were used as the tournament. For example, the Champs Sports, Sun, Capital One, Chick-fil-A, Holiday, Insight, Gator, and Hawaii could be used as first round contests. The Outback, Cotton, Orange, and Sugar would be quarterfinals, and the Rose and Fiesta would be semifinals leading up to the championship, which would still rotate stadiums. This also solves another problem by eliminating all of the ridiculous bowl games that ruin the prestige and tradition of playing in the postseason. It should be an honor to play in a bowl game, not something for 6-6 teams to do. With that said, I believe their should some sort of second tier NIT-style tournament so that 32 to 40 teams can play in the postseason, which is about the number that should.

While many people say this idea would cheapen the thrill of the regular system, I have a plan for that. The tournament field should be chosen by a selection committee like in basketball. They will take account of factors such as strength of schedule, non-conference wins, and road wins, not fan base, tradition, and number of tickets sold. With this playing a role, teams would have to schedule higher quality teams out of conference to build attractive resumes. So, essentially, it's good bye Wofford, hello TCU on the schedules. This would also keep out teams like Connecticut, who won a conference weaker than the WAC, and Ohio State, who beat as many current top 25 teams as the St Xavier Scout Team.

Basically, the point is that it is time for college football to evolve. Steps were made in 1998 when the BCS was formed and in 2007 when the BCS Championship Game was put in. Now, it is time to go for a fully democratic system which will tell us who the best team is.

Teams like Boise St, Nevada, BYU, TCU, and Hawai'i deserve a chance to prove that they are the best. Maybe they get smacked around, and maybe they shock the country, but they shouldn't be denied the opportunity because they aren't as profitable as someone else. At the very least, I can guarantee that any of those teams can beat UConn. If college basketball had the same type of system, Butler would have played the #3 team from C-USA on ESPNU and then been done. Look where they ended up after the tournament. The bottom line is that every team deserves the chance to prove themselves in the regular season and postseason and not be handicapped by the size of their fan base or number of tickets sold. It's time for the NCAA to evolve, and if Mark Cuban has to be the one to start it, let him start it.