10 things I hate about football

Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate football. I am a football nut, and I run a football website. That being said, there are some things about the sport of football, or more accurately, the state of football in this day in age that drives me crazy. So, what better than a countdown of the top things I hate about football?

10. The NFL Network

The NFL Network is a great idea, but executed poorly by the NFL. They are trying to charge cable companies high fees for broadcasting the network, but then demand that the cable companies include it on their basic cable packages. With a limited viewership due to this battle, the NFL then turned around and started airing premier games that many of us did not get to see, like last season’s Cowboys-Packers game.

9. The NFL having a monopoly on pro football

This really is a minor irritant. The problem I have with the NFL being a monopoly is that they have no incentive to try new things or innovate. Competition breeds creativity, so let’s hope Mark Cuban can bring the UFL to fruition.

8. Sudden Death Overtime

The problem I have with overtime in the NFL is that the team that gets the ball first wins more than half the time. Why? Because they only have to mount about 35-45 yards of offense to get within field goal range. And who wants to see a game determined by a guy who isn’t really a football player? Moving the kick off up ten yards may be enough to even the odds for both teams.

7. High School recruiting rankings

A cottage industry has popped up around the college football recruiting process. ESPN gives recruiting updates on its website, and several other sites publish their own rankings. While it’s nice to know who will be playing for your team in the future, these rankings are largely irrelevant and inaccurate. Just like the NFL Draft, there are busts and sleepers in each class. And most rankings are influenced by a program’s reputation. That has to explain how Notre Dame can be so bad despite being consistently ranked high in the recruiting wars.

6. NFL's Instant Replay

The good thing about the NFL's instant replay system is that it works. The problem is that it slows down the game and forces coaches to gamble with their time outs to correct a bad call. I'm not saying that instant replay needs to be scrapped. I think it is a good thing. I just don't like how it stops the game for up to 10 minutes just to get a call right. Making the coach have to be the one to "call out" a bad play, and punishing them if they are wrong, doesn't make any sense either.

5. Know-it-all football “experts” on TV

Remember when the Florida Gators didn’t stand a chance against Ohio State a few years ago? Or when the Patriots were locks to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl. Thank the know-it-all “experts” on ESPN and other shows for not having the guts or imagination to pick a winner that’s not a favorite.

4. NFL rookie contracts

The amount of money handed over to top draft picks is ridiculous. Last year’s #1 pick, JaMarcus Russell, signed a six year contract with over $30 million guaranteed. What did he do to deserve it? Absolutely nothing. The escalating contracts have also made top picks harder to trade. The NFL owners should demand a change to the system during the next round of CBA negotiations.

3. Holding penalties

Nothing ruins a good game like a holding penalty stalling a drive, especially when the penalty is minor and has no bearing on the play. Most holding calls are relatively minor, and penalizing a team 10 yards for these minor fouls makes no sense. I would like to see a 5 yard holding penalty and a 10 yard “flagrant” holding penalty, similar to the facemask penalties.

2. The NCAA's exploitation of "student" athletes

College football and basketball are big moneymakers for American universities. The BCS, March Madness, and numerous TV contracts have made these two sports key breadwinners for many universities. But the NCAA has gone too far. While I don't advocate players getting paid, I do think they are getting the raw end of the deal. Universities make money off of their likeness (via video games and jersey sales), but are failing these athletes from an academic standpoint. Many of these athletes do not graduate, or even take college level classes while they are playing sports. But the blame goes both ways. Colleges use these athletes to make money, and many of these athletes use the colleges as a stepping stone to pro sports. The ones that are getting the raw deal are players like Cincinnati QB Ben Mauk, who was denied a 5th year of eligibility this past offseason. Mauk, who has graduated and is working on a graduates degree, tore up his shoulder in 2006. He missed extensive time and deserves another season of edibility, but did not get it.

1. The Bowl Championship Series

The BCS is the worst thing to ever have happened to college football. The ridiculous selection process often leaves out the best team or teams. The idea of selecting two teams out of over 100 to play in a game almost two months after the end of the season is stupid. College football needs either a 4-8 team playoff OR scrap the BCS and go back to the original bowl system.

The TSN/SI/ESPN Preseason Top 25

Over the last week, I have received in the mail the college football preview issues from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the Sporting News.

Each magazine does a fine job of pointing out what to look for this upcoming season. My only complaint is the complete lack of imagination in their team rankings. USC is the unanimous #1, and LSU the unanimous #2. I guess if the "experts" all agree, then it is going to happen (just like last year's BCS championship).

I have condensed each magazine's rankings into one Top 25. I used the same method that the AP and coaches polls use (25 points for 1st place, 24 for 2nd, etc). ESPN only released a Top 16, so the bottom of the Top 25 is mainly the opinions of the Sporting News and Sports Illustrated.

		TSN	SI	ESPN	Total
1	USC	1	1	1	75
2	LSU	2	2	2	72
3	West Virginia	4	4	4	66
4	Michigan	3	6	5	64
5	Florida	5	3	8	62
6	Texas	6	8	3	61
7	Virgina Tech	7	7	7	57
8	Louisville	9	5	9	55
9	Oklahoma	13	9	6	50
10	Wisconsin	8	10	10	50
11	Ohio St	17	11	12	38
12	Penn St	15	14	13	36
13	Georgia	14	19	11	34
14	Cal	12	20	14	32
15	Auburn	16	16	16	30
16	FSU	11	NR	15	26
17	Rutgers	19	12	NR	21
18	UCLA	10	22	NR	20
19	Tennessee	18	17	NR	17
20	Arkansas	NR	13	NR	13
21	Boise St	NR	15	NR	11
22	Nebraska	23	18	NR	11
23	TCU	20	23	NR	9
24	Hawaii	22	24	NR	6
25	USF	21	25	NR	6

College Football Playoffs Coming In 2011?

According to a report by Lenn Robbins of the New York Post, we could see a four team playoff system in Division IA college football by 2011. The full article can be read here: A Football Final Four.

Robbins reports that the playoff would seed the top four teams (most likely using something like the current BCS), with the winners playing in a newly created bowl game for the national championship. This idea has floated around for a few years under the "Plus-1" moniker.

I am a big proponent of a playoff system in college football. I favor an eight team playoff, but I think a four team one would work just as well. Any type of playoff system is definitely favorable over the old and busted BCS.

If this system was in place last season, the match-ups using the BCS formula would have been: #1 Ohio State vs #4 LSU and #2 Florida vs #3 Michigan.

Would the results have been any different? In theory, less time would have elapsed between the Buckeye's season ending victory over Michigan and the final game against Florida (50+ days). Certainly too much time off was a factor in their performance against the Gators.

It would be erroneous to assume that Michigan's poor performance in the Rose Bowl loss to USC would have translated over to the playoff game against Florida. Michigan was demoralized after being passed over for the BCS game, and therefore did not play their "A" game against a Trojan team looking to prove that their season ending loss to rival UCLA was an aberration.

Florida definitely played with a chip on their shoulder in the BCS title game. Would they have played with the same intensity under the four team format?

It would also be a mistake to overlook LSU. The Tigers won their last six games of the regular season and demolished Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. They had similar team speed (specifically on defense) as the Gators did and would have matched up well against the Buckeyes.

My complete and unbiased view: Ohio State wins a tight one against LSU, and Florida struggles early against Michigan before pulling away at the end. The Gators would then go on to beat the Buckeyes in what I believe would have been a closer, more exciting national championship game.

The timing of this report is great, as I was just about to write an article on how to revolutionize college football's postseason. That article should be up sometime this week.

College Football's Newest Super Conference

With Boise State and Utah cracking the BCS party over the last several years, the "mid-major" college football teams are demanding to be taken seriously. The biggest reason they are not being taken seriously? They play in weak conferences.

There are 54 NCAA Division IA schools that do not play in one of the "major" conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Pac-10, and Big East). Excluding Notre Dame (they are in a special conference that consist of NBC's money, Beano Cook's sanity, Joe Theisman's ego, and Brady Quinn's dignity), that makes 53 teams spread across five conferences.

The solution to this problem? Create a 12 team Super Conference with teams from all across the country. Consider it Conference USA version 2 (CUSA2 for future reference).

The list of 53 teams can be narrowed down to 18 when you eliminate teams with less than 30 wins over the last five seasons. This is a reasonable requirement, as six wins a season is the minimum requirement for bowl eligibility.

This restriction narrows the field down to: Boise State, Bowling Green, BYU, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Houston, Marshall, Miami (OH), Navy, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, Southern Miss, TCU, Toledo, Tulsa, and Utah.

Several programs that didn't make the list could be viewed as rising stars (Florida Atlantic, Troy, San Jose State and UTEP) or falling stars (Memphis, North Texas).

The final 12 were chosen based on program prestige as well as general direction of the football team. Number of bowl appearances and record against big conference schools also influenced the final 12.

CUSA2 (5 year record in parenthesis)
1. Boise State (58-7)
2. TCU (48-13)
3. Hawaii (43-24)
4. Utah (42-18)
5. Northern Illinois (41-20)
6. Toledo (40-23)
7. Bowling Green (39-22)
8. Southern Miss (39-25)
9. Fresno State (39-26)
10. Navy (37-25)
11. Miami (37-25)
12. BYU (31-29)

The easiest way to align a conference that spans the entire continent (and then some) is to divide them into an East and West. But that could easily lead to an imbalance in power, as the West under that alignment would easily be the stronger division. I prefer the single division alignment with the top two teams meeting for the conference championship at the end of the season.

I chose BYU over Marshall (34-26), Houston (31-31), New Mexico (34-29), Colorado State (31-31) and Nevada (33-28) for the final spot for two reasons: 1) BYU is a nationally known program with a long history of success and 2) With the exception of Nevada, one could argue that the other programs listed are in decline.

To really make things interesting, have a "qualification" process like they do in the European soccer leagues. Every three to five years, review the five year record, bowl record and etc of every team in the conference as well as all the other teams that didn't initially make the cut. Drop the lagging teams and replace with newer, more exciting rising teams. This gives each team in the conference incentive to do their best, as well as reward smaller programs who have excelled. If Dick Tomey's San Jose Spartans make several more bowl games and gain national prominence, they should be rewarded for their success.