Comments about ‘It may be time to fix whole college football system’

I was excited to see Boise St and the Cougars hitching their wagons together for the next 12 years and forming a new partnership/rivalry. (thanks Utes) They both are national brands when it comes to football. If they join the Big East with this year's BCS buster Houston, up-and-coming SMU and the service academies things will be just fine. A couple of cross-over games with the east division and then 4-5 games at-large, plus a potential conference championship gameworks out well for BYU exposure.

Also, it's silly to think 100+ institutions are going to rebuild their conference affiliations to make it work better geographically.

I live in West Virginia, a comfortable drive from both Kouisville and Cincy. I also visit, with my local daughter and family, my daughter in Draper on 3 day holidays. Personally I hate flying, but if I can have breakfast at home and b e in the Valley for lunch, its the new age, i.e. a couple games in the east( will not hurt.BYU already scheduled Notre Dame, Ga Tech and WVU)It isn't like crossing Wyoming in a wagon. There in the Valley, all that TV exposure might look good, but out here in America people are B O R E D. Its like Fla International vs Arkansas State. When BYU need revenue for its own sake, milions of people would respond with minimums of fifty bucks. Conference USA, which goes from Greenville NC to El Paso and includes local Marshall, does quite well and is to contribute to the Divisional Big East. I repeat: anyone who saw the WVU- UofCinn game from a packed Paul Brown stadium ccould see this is no rinky dink conference. Drop Utah and march into a bright new future, YV rights understood.

"the old system of regional conferences is being challenged."

BYU is not a regional school. It doesn't belong to Utah, exclusively. This move has all of the positives of independence and conference programs.

Only one problem - "TV Revenu and Exposers". Put all 80 or something and you know those Bigs (Texas, ND, USC, etc.) want big tv $$$$ and exposers and leave out like Misouri for example. Not going to happen. BYU just need to stay what they have for now but of course when do we see more big games on their schedlue after September each year?

There will be major shakeups after 2013. Momentum is moving toward the elimination of AQ status for all conferences (see John Taylor's Nov 10th CBS sports article). With the elimination, conferences will pair back membership and schools will look to reignite old rivalries. Hopefully if BYU joins the Big East they will not have a play for free agreement like Utah does with PAC 12. Such an agreement will look even more ridiculous in 2013 when "AQ" is eliminated for all conferences.

If we are going to fix football, why not be honest and call college football what it really is: NFL Farm System.

College football players make millions for their schools and get a scholarship in return. I know many football players, particularly the married players that really struggle financially. Many of these players get injured, destroying their pro prospects.

It is time that they paid the players a reasonable salary. It is also time that the NFL either take control of their own farm system or enter into a partnership with the NCAA.

Athletes should not have to enroll in class during the season, it just takes too much time. Let them attend in the off season.

Athletes should also be required to take financial management classes so they can properly handle the megabucks that maybe 5% will actually receive.

I like the idea proposed by this article. FBS teams don't play by the same rules as the other NCAA sports anyway and this would get us much closer to a playoff that the current system.

Football indepence should be BYU's stance for quite a while. As conferences get hungrier for quality academics and sports they'll come calling for BYU. BYU would be smart to not jump in just because an AQ is calling. Maybe BYU SHOULD join the BigEast and then the next week declare its Football independence. Figure 27 months to exit the conference and that BigEast will lose AQ status in the timeframe.

It is a bad idea for BYU to move to the Big East. The only thing they offer is an AQ BCS bid. This is a short sighted decision that will bite them in the future.

They should absolutely reset the system!

Regional Conferences would be a great start. BYU and Boise State should be in the same Conference as Utah!!!

They should also split up DIV 1 football. 120 teams is simply too many and many are too small to ever have a shot at a National Championship.

If College Football is really about the student athlete, then the schools should not be able to band together in conferences at the expense of other schools in order to make maximum profit.

The schools should be ASSIGNED a conference based on region. Revenues should be shared. Players should be given a stipend. (Football should also be exempt from Title IX, but that is a whole other argument)

This will never happen though, it makes too much sense.

I like the idea of this, but I want to take it one step further: Why not set it up like the Premier, etc. soccer leagues of Europe?

If they did this, they could still have a "BCS" of sorts, but it would be regional and the teams in each region would change every year. The teams who played well would retain their "BCS" status for the following year, but if they did poorly, they would be relegated to the FCS league.

It would not only improve the access, but it would make FCS Championships, etc. more exciting and would also give motivation to BCS teams who lose the first 2-3 games in a season to keep competing. You could even keep Bowls, share TV broadcast rights across networks, etc.

Like Rock says, though... it makes too much sense.

Hatch:

What play for free agreement? Please do your fan base credit and educate yourself on how Utah's deal works before posting statements that are not true. As I have demonstrated before, here is the breakdown:

first year Utah receives 2 million from divided conference championship revenue (approx. $24M divided by 12), plus any of the divided bowl money. So, Utah could get about 4 million this year.
second year, Utah receives HALF of the projected TV revenue, plus another 2 million for the championship game, plus any divided bowl money, plus 100% of the network revenue. This means Utah could get about 15-16 million.
third year, Utah receives 75% of the projected TV revenue, plus another 2 million for the championship game, plus any divided bowl money, plus 100% of the network revenue. This means Utah could get about 20 million.
Fourth year, Utah would receive 100% of TV revenue, 2 million for the championship game, plus any divided bowl revenue, plus 100% of network revenue. At this point the revenue is projected to be above 30 million. 4+15+20+30=69 Million.

I don't really see what the point of doing what Rock proposes would be. And I don't have a problem with the current realignment as it is occurring for a few reasons:

1. Self interest is at the heart of it which means for the most part each institution gets to do what they think is best for them
2. TV contracts have come a long way over the past 15 years since the first superconference experiment. Travelling across the country 4-5 times per season is not as big of a financial problem because TV companies are willing to pay for it. This was not the case back in the 90's.
3. The alignment is, in my opinion, like hitting a refresh button on college football. We finally get to see some interesting games that are a bit beyond the mold and box of the last 50 years. I like refresh buttons better than reset buttons. Resets take way too long to reboot.

College football should identify themselves for what they really are; a money making corporation with non paid employees; the colligiate student athlete.

Get college football a bye from Title 9. Get college football as far away from BCS and NCAA affiliation as humanly possible. Let universities contract with the NFL as a minor league affiliate and start paying these athletes. If colleges want to pay the student's school expenses, so be it. Otherwise let the kids play. Let us pay for the right to see them play.

Let's all have the courage to admit that college football is a mega huge business for profit entity and stop taking advantage of student athletes that make others filthy rich.

As an east-coaster, you should know that the sun does indeed shine on the East Coast, and it shines 2+ hours earlier than in Utah. Not only does the sun shine here, but the east coast people are more welcoming & kind, and are less judgmental, which would be enjoyed by the cougars, who are used to turning their cheeks to antagonizing Mormon-hating fans in Utah, Wyoming, California, etc. Remember how great BYU was treated at Ole Miss? I think an east-coast presence would be a major improvement for BYU.

Pay for players is a slippery slope. I'm pretty old school. I grew up with the old Pacific 8, then the 10, etc. I taught at Yale, where the football team had to actually attend classes and no spring practice was allowed. Yale-Harvard was the "Big Game" with 100,000 people in the Yale Bowl. Yale beat UConn all the time, now they don't even play. The players got a free Yale education. That was all.

Since a USC education would cost $100,000+, a full ride scholarship seems like a good deal to me. If spending-money is required, maybe mom and dad could chip in. If married, well, let wifey work like mine did. There's no rule that you have to have a baby right away.

But if you are a poor kid, then why not a fund for hardship support. A player can't get a part time job, so they should be able to apply for a hardship grant.

-Bleed-Blue | 12:29 p.m. Nov. 16, 2011
ROANOKE, VA

Hear! Hear! A port of grape juice for you. Utah supplies vital players to BYU but the best fans are not Utahns.

How about we just delete the competitive sports programs from colleges and universities in its entirety. What is the percentage of these competitive athletes who receive a real education that they can use anyway? Education ought to be the key in college. Create sports programs outside of college for the high school jocks who would otherwise not even make into a school for higher learning and the pro sports programs can draw from them. Give the poor kids who are really seeking an education a way to get it outside of sports -- let them decide what is more important to them.

If BYU is going to be in an AQ conference, it's time to change. Aren't they the reason the BCS exists in the first place? If they could have a shot at another title, the powers that be can't be happy. They'll find a way to change it if the Big East keeps AQ status (and that's a pretty big if) the loss if Pitt, WVU, etc. it's just a glorified Conference USA. BYU and Boise State are nice replacements for a couple of those teams but, are we forgetting that they already lost Miami and FSU since the last time it was reviewed? If they had held on to TCU then, maybe but I'd be surprised to see them retain AQ status.

Take the existing 120 Division I-A teams (I think the FBS name is STUPID!!).
Divide them into 8 conferences of 14 teams each (preserving traditional rivalries and conference alignments as much as possible) - that uses 112 of the existing teams.
Send the 8 worst current Div I-A teams (New Mexico, Florida Atlantic, Akron, etc.) packing to Div I-AA.
Divide each conference into two 7 team divisions.
This gives each team 3 home games and 3 away games WITHIN the division.
Play 2 out of division conference games each year 1 home and 1 away.
Play 4 out of conference games each year.
You have 8 conference championship games.
Take the 8 conference champions and have an 8 team playoff for the national championship.