The People vs. College Football Scheduling

People often ask me which I prefer; college football or professional football, to which I always choose the former. They will then often engage me in some sort of argument to why professional football is better. Almost any theory they throw at me, however, is bullshit and I can argue against. Something along the lines of: "Pro football has better athletes," - yeah, so what. It doesnt imply the execution is any better. It isnt like the NBA vs College Basketball where the level of play is markedly improved - just watch the Carolina Panthers or the Bengals from last year and tell me the athleticism of their players produced "good football." Some people dont like the 'gimmickiness' of college football; how teams can run old-fashioned option which barely exists now, or the new read option, or how games evolve into shoot outs. To them I say, I dont understand why if someone can run the read option well, this is bad, and these people often are ignoring the fact that pro football has continuously implemented rules to help the offenses; cowboy collar, no touching after 5 yards, hitting someone shoulder to shoulder over the middle being interpreted as a personal foul, etc, etc. And finally, my favorite argument that: "there are too many teams in college football," which just implies you're too lazy to get involved. (Although I could watch any game, including Friday Night MAC games, I can understand if people just wanted to watch the upper 80% of BCS conference teams, and the handful of non-BCS teams that are good year in, year out. This would come to be about 60 teams; less than double the amount of NFL teams, which isn't that astronomical. Besides, I'd argue that the fact you're exposed to more teams is good. You should be able to watch middle of the road-to good teams such as N.C. State, Miss State, Arizona, Michigan State, etc, whereas when was the last time you saw the Jacksonville Jaguars on TV when they werent playing your team and you had the basic cable plan?)

*Quick sidenote. One of the reasons I think college football is less popular in this day and age, yet something no ever said to me was the existence of fantasy football. I know college fantasy exists, but I have never met anyone who actually plays it. That is a bit overkill, and that is coming from me. NFL does benefit from the fact that even though you may not watch the Buffalo Bills all year, you know about their revolving door at the RB position.


The argument that keeps coming up again and again is the BCS and the need for a playoff system. This is one I have flip flopped on for a while. On one hand, I wrote this article two years ago, about how the BCS was an improvement on college football pre-1998. (if you go back and read this entire blog I wrote two years ago, youll see that I made a lot of insightful points. I also had terrible grammar, made poor arguments, and backtracked on a lot of things I said two years ago.) On the other hand, I recently wrote an article advocating for a 4 team playoff. Its an endless debate, to a certain extent. Whichever side of the coin you fall on, however, you can't argue against College footballs regular season importance. Every game is extremely important. Every game is a do-or-die. Teams cant afford to slip up the way the Patriots can lose a meaningless game to the Browns, and still rely on their strength in the playoffs to win the title.

While this remains true, it has been weakened to a small extent. When talking to my friend today, he brought up that he didnt like that there are college football games where the favored team is going to win by 70 points, and theres a 0% chance they lose. This argument is tough to defend. I would say that Appalachian State beat Michigan, so it isn't a 0% chance of a massive underdog losing. In addition, the one time App State won trumps all the other times a powerhouse beat little sister's of the poor. That would be my argument if I had to defend it. For the most part, however, I agree. It is one of the worst things about college football. If we look closer, we realize it is also a more recent development.

We only have to look back twenty years, max, to see a vast difference in the college football landscape. Reading the aformentioned "History of BCS" article, we see that the conferences of a year as recent as 1991 were mere shadows of what they are today. Major powerhouses such as FSU, Penn State, Miami, Pitt, and Texas all either didnt play in a conference, or played in a different one. Changes to the structure of the title game forced teams to join conferences. This was in the early 1990s, before the BCS was around. Then, conference title games were added. Why? To have everything that comes with another game; TV revenue, TV contracts, advertising, travel revenue, revenue, revenue, revenue. What does this mean for the teams involved? Another tough, difficult opponent/game.

If we add in the theory that every game is a do-or-die, is it no wonder that teams started scheduling cupcake university? A deeper analysis may be needed, but it seems to have started with Spurrier and the Gators in the mid 1990s. A look at their 1996 title season, and we see they started with Southwest Louisiana and Ga Southern. Not really the most formidable of opponents. We also see that despite playing in the SEC title game and the Sugar Bowl, they only played a total of 13 games. That is because it used to be uniform that teams played 11 'regular season' games, a possible title game (SEC was the first), and then a bowl. Now, with a 12th game, it again is wonder that teams are not going to go out of their way to schedule anyone difficult to play. INstead, they'll cut a $1,000,000 check for the Citadel to come and get their asses beat in the Swamp.

This is drastically different from college basketball. In college basketball, coaches are applauded for scheduling tough teams. Mark Few's Gonzaga is somewhat credited with this idea. When his Gonzaga teams played a shitty WCC schedule in the mid 00s, he went out of his way to schedule big name non-conference opponents in November and December. His thought process was this would toughen them up and get them ready. As the old adage goes: "youre only as tough as you play." It worked, for the most part, except for this, (sorry, had to get a GuS JOhnson mention in, although I think hes jumped the shark [another story for another day]). Even if Gonzaga lost all six tough games, they would do well in the WCC, get in the tourney, and be a tougher team to beat. Coaches and ADs cannot do this in football, because one slip up and youre fucked. Youre better off not taking a risk, and instead play the Citadel and win (not to mention margin of victory was at one point a component of the BCS formula).

Before all this bullshit of BCS, conference title games, conference affiliations, etc, etc, existed a simpler time. A time when teams scheduled each other with no fear, and it was badass, every game counts, true cut-throat tournament of football. Look at ND's 1988 championship campaign. You cant possibly argue against them being the best team. No one ever bitched and moaned about a lack of a playoff in 1988 because a) we werent pussies then, but b) the proof was in the pudding. ND played #1, #2, #3, and #9 that year. They also played their then annual rivalry with Penn State, and annual rivalry with MSU, Purdue, and Stanford. They couldnt help that those teams werent as good as they usually were. So while Drew Brees and Touchdown Tommy Vardell werent suiting up for Purdue and Stanford, it wasnt as if ND was scheudling Tennessee-Chattanooga or Tennessee-Chatanooga (two different links-poor bastards).

Even look at 1990 Colorado, who I strongly consider to be the worst team to win a title in my lifetime. They played 7 conference games against other Big 8 opponents. Who were there other 5? Stanford, @ #8 Tennessee, @ #21 Illinois (only loss, respect), #12 Washington, and @ #20 Texas (not in same conference back then). So you cant really fault them for their scheduling, although you can fault the refs for this: / this.

It is a shame, and the more I thought about it, one of the worst things about college football. Now, teams are scared to play each other. FSU doesnt want to play ND (ND - still independent, and still packs the schedule with traditional rivalries has had other teams bow out and reappear over the years. They have maintained playing USC, Michigan, MSU, and Purdue every year, but Penn State, FSU, BC, and Stanford have come and gone throughout), Pitt doesnt want to play Penn State, Arkansas doesnt want to play Texas, people called for a Iowa Nebraska rivalry that never happened, but now will with Neb joining the Big10, etc, etc. Games in 2011 such as Oregon vs LSU are being heralded, and rightfully so, but those types of games used to be commonplace in college football. Every single week someone was eliminated; there were no weeks where Mark May and Rece Davis would come on tv and coin the day "Survival Saturday" and show all the close calls of the top 5 teams. All this happened due to conference affiliation, extra games, and the cutthroat nature of college football.

Wait a minute....Im blaming the cutthroat nature of college football? Even though I said that this is the same thing I love about it? Yes. It is the cutthroat nature that leads teams to schedule Tenn-Chattanooga, Youngstown State, The Citadel, etc. But it is also the cutthroat nature that leads this game to be so awesome, or this one, or this one, or especially this one. If it werent the cutthroat nature, we wouldnt have a highlight reel like this. And if it werent so damn cutthroat, players, announcers, and fans wouldnt react the way they do to this, this, or this.
So while I cant defend the fact that Alabama schedules Tenn-Chatanooga for a game in late November, I can certainly say that there are aspects of college football that are linked to the same reason as to why Bama would schedule Tenn-Chat that outweigh the fact that they schedule Tenn-Chat. If that doesnt make sense, click on all the "this"'s above, and I think you'll understand.