I-A football is a joke

How is it that a half-wit, 20-something-year-old goofball can figure it out and NCAA big boy football can't?

There's seven teams that warrant national championship consideration. But, gee, let's only give the two biggest athletic departments in the nation another shot and only invite them to play for a national title.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to keep the bowl games and incorporate them into a playoff system.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that a three-week break between games at the end of a season leads to crappy, rusty games with too many false starts, holds, missed tackles, busted plays, etc.

Last year, 59 percent of the bowl games sucked.

For crying out loud, I wrote a paper at a community college in 1998 on how to solve the problem with NCAA Division I-A football. (That's right, a community college student can figure it out, but NCAA bigwigs can't). The money mongers went for a complicated computer formula with a rotating three-game Bowl Championship Series to determine the national champion. My solution was quite a bit simpler: A playoff with bowl games serving as neutral sites.

You want 32 bowl games? We'll give you 31. But one rule: You can't have any of the bowls named after a sponsor (unless it's a city/state government).

So you've got 31 bowl games. Congratulations. Those break down nicely into a 16-team playoff. Ah, heck, we'll give you 32: Have a Senior Bowl after the national championship.

You want a three-game rotating series between the top three bowls? No problem. The Rose, Orange and Sugar bowls can rotate the two semifinals and national championship around every year.

The quarterfinals can be the more historical bowls, like the Gator, Cotton, Peach and Sun bowls. But get the sponsor names out of there.

I didn't think it was that hard to grasp, so are you still with me?

All right, let's fill out all those Poinsettia, New Orleans, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Motor City, Holiday, Texas, Emerald, etc. bowls.

Hey, this sounds exciting. Tell you what NCAA: You can even keep those BCS rankings. How's that?

Woohooo! Let's fill out that bracket according to BCS rankings.

First round

No. 1 Ohio State vs.

No. 16 Tennessee

No. 8 Kansas vs. No. 9 West Virginia

No. 5 Georgia vs. No. 12 Florida

No. 4 Oklahoma vs. No. 13 Illinois

No. 6 Missouri vs. No. 11 Arizona State

No. 3 Virginia Tech vs. No. 14 Boston College

No. 7 USC vs. No. 10 Hawaii

No. 2 LSU vs. No. 15 Clemson

Wow, take a look at that. I even left some extra lines in there to more easily see the quarterfinal and semifinal matchups.

… Dang, I was pulling for Hawaii (the FBS's only undefeated team) to have an easier road. But USC and then LSU?! Ouch. Imagine Colt Brennan against that stout USC defense.

Everybody likes those 12-5 upsets. Take a look at that SEC matchup.

Oooo, Arizona State against Missouri? I bet that would be a good game.

Dang, check out Boston College QB Matt Ryan's matchup against that Virginia Tech D!

Kansas vs. West Virginia? Does it get any better?

Look, you feel bad because you left all those other institutions of higher learning out of the money pi-ata? Sorry. Here's an idea: Let's let them concentrate on C-L-A-S-S-E-S.

… Ah, heck, tell you what? If you can figure out how to expand the field to 32 teams (that means you gotta figure a six-week playoff format into it … That's kinda long), you can eventually do that.

You're not called the NCAA Football CHAMPIONSHIP Subdivision for a reason. But, hey, take pride in that Football Bowl Subdivison moniker you've got now.

Pfffph! What a joke.

Carl Hennell is a sports reporter for The Daily Inter Lake whose columns appear every Monday. He can be reached at chennell@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4446.