College Football Champions League

[jlb1705]

I've been kicking this idea around for the last couple weeks, and want to try to get it out there and generate some discussion on it. Maybe that will get it to stop bouncing around in my head. :tongue2:

The idea is a Champions League for college football, similar to the ones they do in soccer at the club level.

The idea is based on a few things that I hold to be true:

• Single-elimination playoffs are a lousy way to determine a champion. In the US we are obsessed with them, to the extent that anything the does not involve a bracket is considered inferior - even if it makes regular season, round robin-style play completely meaningless or even if it means giving mediocre, undeserving teams a shot to get hot and make a run winning it all.
• Conference championships have been devalued, and that takes some of the luster off of college football.
• The BCS is lousy and MUST GO

The idea would be to take the champions from the regular season from each FBS league - no at-large bids - and put them in a round-robin spring league. With 11 FBS leagues, that would mean 11 teams and a 10-game schedule for each. The team with the best record at the end of the round robin is your national champion.

A spring league seems doable as long as the will is there. It's not as if football players are not participating in football-related activities throughout the year. The issues with heat and cold would really be no different than what's faced in the fall - they'd just occur in reverse order. Most programs that would be in contention for such a Champions League would likely have indoor practice facilities they could utilize to prepare just before the start of the competition.

More so than any other attempt at spring football in the past (XFL, USFL, etc.), this could take off because the market for these teams is already established. They could hold games at neutral sites across the country - bowl stadiums and even NFL stadiums since it's the offseason. I think people would attend these games in stronger numbers than many of the bowls, because there would be more venues available and a better chance of finding something convenient to each team's fanbase.

Meanwhile, it would be an opportunity for college football in the fall to go back to its roots - emphasis on regional matchups and conference championships.

There's another option too, if the haves wouldn't want to play nice with the have-nots on something like this: A home-and-home round robin with the champions of the six current BCS conferences. That would get the games back in the home stadiums of the participating programs and minimize home-field advantages. In the case of an inevitable tie, the first tie-breaker could be head-to-head aggregate, the second tie-breaker could be overall scoring differential, etc.

I felt like this belonged in its own thread rather than being lumped in with the College Playoff discussion. I don't think I'd be satisfied with a single-elimination playoff, especially in bastardized form that the bowl-conference cabal is bound to come up with. On the other hand, I've had it completely with the BCS. To me this is an alternative to both.

 

[Ryan36_1]

It sounds like it would be interesting to watch. To immediate issues I can think of:

-Seniors and early departures. I could definitely see agent's telling clients not to do this. Add to this the fact that the NFL Draft would have to be moved if you wanted to see these players in the Spring. Not sure how exciting it would be to see an Cam-less Auburn team who clearly wasn't the best team in the SEC play in this round robin.

-Competetive advantage. So much value is given to the extra 15-20 practices and 1 game that comes with bowl season. This would be giving 10% of teams 10 weeks of extra games and practices. I could see this turining into a situation akin to the Steinbrenner Yankees very soon (moreso than already exists in CFB)

 

[Jake]

I like the concept, but the timing and number of teams seems too much to me. First off, finish the season. Stopping for 4 months then having this tourney doesn't appeal to me and I doubt it would for many others. I know UEFA does it that way, but some things that work for soccer won't necessarily work for college football. I wouldn't go any higher than the top 4 ranked conference champions, playing round robin versus each other.

Of course, a dinosaur will take a shit on the 50 yard line in the Shoe before anything like this happens.

 

[jlb1705]

-Seniors and early departures.

Hadn't thought of that aspect. Good catch. That would be a tough one.

-Competetive advantage.

Why not just let the other teams continue to practice? It's not as if these kids aren't already committed to football activities year-round anyway. The "offseason" is almost as big a myth as amateurism is.

On the one hand you would have a handful of teams continuing to sharpen their game by playing against quality competition. On the other hand you'd have the teams that were left out who'd have more time an effort to put toward scouting and recruiting in an effort to catch up.

Besides, it's not as if there isn't already just a handful of teams that have a realistic shot at winning it all. The way I see it, an option like this would take the determination of a champion out of the hands of voters and committees, and put it as much on the field as possible. Even in a playoff, you'll probably have voters or committees determining who gets in who gets what seed.

I like the concept, but the timing and number of teams seems too much to me. First off, finish the season. Stopping for 4 months then having this tourney doesn't appeal to me and I doubt it would for many others. I know UEFA does it that way, but some things that work for soccer won't necessarily work for college football. I wouldn't go any higher than the top 4 ranked conference champions, playing round robin versus each other.

The timing is a challenge with the way I proposed it, simply because it is such a departure from the way things have always been done. With the number of teams I proposed, taking it onto the end of the regular season in its current form would be too much. If you reduced the number of teams tacking it on the end could work. Two problems with that though:

• College football would end up competing for attention with the NFL postseason
• Any time you get into the "highest ranked" this or that, you start getting back in to cloak-and-dagger BCS territory. That's part of want I was trying to avoid when I was thinking of this. In my ideal world, there are no voters, computer rankings and no selection committees

 

[Jake]

The timing is a challenge with the way I proposed it, simply because it is such a departure from the way things have always been done. With the number of teams I proposed, taking it onto the end of the regular season in its current form would be too much. If you reduced the number of teams tacking it on the end could work. Two problems with that though:

• College football would end up competing for attention with the NFL postseason
• Any time you get into the "highest ranked" this or that, you start getting back in to cloak-and-dagger BCS territory. That's part of want I was trying to avoid when I was thinking of this. In my ideal world, there are no voters, computer rankings and no selection committees

I love the idea of no voters, rankings or selection committees, but I was trying to come up with a pragmatic compromise between what we have now and what you are suggesting. I did so because I think your idea is pure fantasy with absolutely no chance in the world of being remotely considered by the powers-that-be, much less happening.

It would be fun to watch though.