My College Football Christmas Wishes

This is what I hope Santa brings for me….and college football….this Christmas.

Less bowl games

Look, I love bowl games. A lot. If there were 50 bowl games, I’d probably end up watching most of them. But that doesn’t mean I’d like it. The number of bowl games has exploded, doubling in the BCS era. I’m not going to fault any organizer for trying to create a game but, come on, we’ve reached our limit. In fact, we’re over our limit.

So let’s cut the number to 30, at least. A bowl game needs to again reward teams for having good seasons, not just average seasons. To make it easier, let’s raise the number of wins necessary to reach a bowl up to seven wins. If you go .500, I’m sorry, you really don’t deserve a reward. It’s more than a little unfair that 8-4 Temple is staying home, losing its coach in the process, while a dreadful 6-6 UTEP team gets national television exposure.

Far less FBS vs. FCS games

There was a time not so long ago that FBS teams could play FCS teams – then I-A vs. I-AA – but the victory would not count toward bowl eligibility. Then, the NCAA changed the rules and allowed teams to count one victory toward eligibility. That has backfired in the worst way possible. Every FBS team save for UCLA, USC and Notre Dame has played an FCS team in the past five years. It’s a joke. Some schools, such as Syracuse and Arizona, actually scheduled TWO FCS teams.

We need these games to be eliminated or at least drastically reduced. How do we do that? Simple – go back to having them not count toward bowl eligibility. If Florida or Alabama want a late-season scrimmage against an FCS team for a nice, easy payday, bully for them. But it won’t help them get into a bowl.

More specifically, these would eliminate teams such as Syracuse or Clemson sneaking into bowl games thanks to victories over lower division teams. There’s absolutely no reason why these games should count. It’s ruined September – once a month filled with exciting, inter-conference matchups. Now, it’s a month filled with 62-7 scores and dreadful schedules.

More unique bowl matchups

Did you know that the Auburn/Oregon game will be the first Pac-10/SEC BCS bowl matchup in the BCS era? What a joke. I don’t need to see five Big Ten/SEC games every year. I don’t need to see the ACC/Big East have any more pillow fights. Can the Pac-10 and Big XII play other conferences?

Here’s a few suggestions:

A Pac-10/SEC bowl series. The Holiday Bowl and the Gator Bowl are two traditional bowls that are rapidly losing its standing in the bowl hierarchy. Let’s fix that. Both games become Pac-12 vs. SEC – somewhere between the #3 and #6 selections for each conference. The tickets will be divided up so the “home” conference will be on the hook for most of the tickets. For example, the Gator Bowl will give 15,000 tickets to the SEC team but only 5,000 to the Pac-10. Flip that for the Holiday Bowl.

An ACC/Big Ten matchup. This existed the last few years at the Champs Sports Bowl and produced two interesting matchups, at least on paper, in the past two years with Wisconsin/Florida State and Wisconsin/Miami. Why did this stop? The conferences have a good basketball rivalry, it could translate to the gridiron.

The MAC champion vs. the Sun Belt champion. In the 2010 GMAC Bowl, MAC champion Central Michigan and Sun Belt champion Troy played a wonderfully exciting game. We need more champion vs. champion games. The GMAC Bowl is now the GoDaddy.com Bowl but its location in Alabama makes it a prime candidate to host an annual battle of champions – a mini-Rose Bowl if you will.

More flexibility. I’m tired of the same conference matchups every year because it inevitably forces teams lower on the bowl food chain if they played in a bowl the year before. I would like to see a couple of bowls come together to split up teams differently each year. I’m envisioning a group of three to four bowls signing deals with six conferences, maybe Notre Dame and the independents, to create different matchups each year. Create a poor man’s BCS, with a selection order and deals to give us the best games. We know the bowls are created to give us the best matchups – so give us the best matchups.

No more excessive celebration penalties on game-winning plays.

Is there anything stupider than a team being penalized because the whole team rushed the field after a likely game-winning touchdown? The excessive celebration penalty was instituted to prevent taunting, not raw showings of emotion.

Start overtime at the 30 yard line

There’s nothing less exciting than a team getting a turnover in overtime and then turning around a kicking a field goal without having to gain a yard. It sort of ruins the excitement. Most college kickers are able to drill a 42-yard field goal. For some reason, most college kickers are not able to drill a 47-yard field goal. The point of the college overtime was to eliminate the NFL-style of winning games by playing it safe and kicking field goals. At least make a team gain some yards before kicking a game winner.

No BCS bashing until Thanksgiving weekend

I can’t tell you how many articles I read and how many personalities I listened to ripping the BCS for excluding an undefeated Boise State and/or TCU from the national title game and/or a BCS bowl. This started in October. It ended up being a lot of wasted time. The BCS doesn’t make its selections in October, or even November. You would think after 12 years, we’d realize we have to wait for the entire season to play out but I guess that would fly directly in the face of our Twitter generation. Speaking of which…

Let them tweet!

I’m so sick and tired of football coaches, and coaches in general, preventing their players from using social media, particularly Twitter. Why? Why are the players forced to talk to the media but not allowed to directly talk to their fans? College football players should be allowed to share with their world their feelings, whether that means dissing an opponent, talking about how good the team is or, in the case of Terrelle Pryor, making news. Twitter is the future, embrace it.

More inter-conference home and home series

I loved Virginia Tech/Boise State in DC. I enjoyed LSU/North Carolina in the Georgia Dome. But the trend of preseason “bowl games” is getting really old, really quick. I know LSU is playing Oregon in Dallas. Wouldn’t you rather see a home and home between those two? Boise is playing Georgia in Atlanta – wouldn’t a Georgia trip to Boise be infinitely more exciting?

Regular season college football is not meant to be played at neutral sites. A game or two to showcase the sport on opening weekend, that’s fine. And that’s more than enough. Give me LSU/Oregon in Death Valley and Boise State/Georgia on the blue turf. I don’t want to see Alabama play Michigan at JerryWorld in Dallas, I want to see Alabama in the Big House. Don’t you?

Follow me on Twitter