Tag Archives: byu basketball

By Adam Mangum
adam@loyalcougars.com
@ajmangum (Twitter)

I would like to blow up the NCAA and start over.

I realize that I’m in the minority. My rants against the BCS and the NCAA usually fall upon deaf ears when I talk to other college football fans, and especially to other BYU fans. With independence looming and coming off one of the best basketball seasons in BYU history, most BYU fans are not going to spend a lot of fan energy thinking about revamping the NCAA. Me? I can’t stop thinking about.

Whether it’s the atrocious cartel of the BCS, or bowl game corruption, or coaches who preach moral behavior to their players and then scam and cheat, the NCAA exists as one of the most profound and disturbing paradoxes of modern sports. An amateur athletic organization that is supposed to be about education and value, but at the top levels of football and men’s basketball is really about money and winning, similar to its professional counterparts.

This post is not about paying players. Writers at ESPN looked at that topic weeks ago, and I don’t think it’s the answer. And it doesn’t fix my biggest issues with the NCAA: fairness, transparency and corruption (though paying players might make the sports ‘less corruptible’).

Today I will deal with fairness of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, or as we used to call it, D-I.

The BCS Conferences Are A Joke
“The SEC is awesome. No other conference can touch it.” “The Big Ten plays a brand of football that would wear down mid-majors.” “The Big East is a conference created by the gods.”

Ok, so you’ve never heard the third statement, but you’ve likely heard variations of the first two applied to the Pac 10 (now Pac 12), Big Ten, SEC and Big 12. The argument goes that if you put a successful mid-major like Boise State, TCU or BYU into one of those conferences, they’d be mid-level teams at best, crushed under the weight of BCS conference schedule.

Let’s say that’s true, that TCU couldn’t hang with the SEC. They certainly will do fine in the Big East. They would be a top team in the ACC. And I think they’d fare very well in the Pac 12, Big Ten or Big 12. But let’s say TCU really is a cupcake who would not challenge for the any of the BCS conference titles. My response: so what?

What gives Vanderbilt, Indiana, Arizona State, Duke and others the right to suck 9 out of 10 years and put together a decent season every once in a while? Tradition? Academics? Please. The conferences would have you believe that the mid-majors can’t compete with them. That might be true, but it’s true that most of the conferences are dominated by a handful of teams. TCU or BYU would have a much better chance at sustained success in the Big 12 than Baylor, but they don’t get the chance.

The BCS is a corrupt and evil entity
OK, maybe evil is laying it on a little thick. But if you don’t believe the BCS is a bogus system, you’re wrong. There’s an excellent book, “Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series”, that does an excellent job laying this all out. Suffice it to say, this is a self-perpetuating system that protects a small handful of schools and keeps most the money in their hands. And it protects schools like Baylor and Indiana who have less of a shot than Boise State at making a BCS bowl.

We need a playoff
Please don’t start with the, “But a playoff wouldn’t work” crap. In the “Death to the BCS” and other places, plans for realistic and profitable playoffs have been outlined. The evidence is irrefutable that a playoff could work and that it is likely more profitable for the NCAA as a whole. But it would likely reduce the total revenue for the top schools. If every other sport in America can do a playoff, I’m sure the geniuses at the NCAA could figure it out.

The one argument I understand in favor of the bowls is this one: it might be a better system for fans of teams that don’t win consistently. BYU was 6-6 this season, but still played a game in December. As a fan, I watched the game and was excited about it. A 12- or 16-team playoff would shrink the postseason a lot, and many fans who enjoy seeing their team make a bowl during an off year would miss that opportunity. (Keep in mind that most schools lose money on bowl games, so it’s not about the schools making money.)

But that’s easily solved: keep the bowls. Yes, the big bowls would morph into playoffs as potential sites for the final games, but the smaller bowls could continue to exist. ESPN wants the programming in December, and, as a BYU fan, would you have been less likely to watch the New Mexico Bowl because a playoff was happening? Heck, I watch BYU in the NIT. We’d all still watch out teams play in the toilet bowls.

The Solution: Blow it all up
A playoff would be a tremendous first step, but it only mitigates the problem. Whatever system was devised, the top conferences would still take most playoff spots. How could that be changed? By disbanding all the conferences and starting over.

It’s an incredibly radical idea. But this is how it would work:

• Take all 120 FBS teams and divide them evenly into 10 conferences/divisions of 12 teams
• Parity would be the first criteria. The 120 teams would be divided evenly as far as the strength of the program. This would not be done solely upon team performance over the past 3-5 seasons, but also by judging the strength of the school’s resources and fan base.
• Geography would be the second criteria. Conferences would be designed geographically as much as is possible while fulfilling the first criteria of parity. This would minimize conference travel costs.
• Traditional rivalries would be the third criteria. Where at all possible, traditional school rivalries would be maintained. That being said, it order to maintain the first criteria, it is inevitable that some rivalries may have to become non-conference rivalries.
• The new conferences would them each get one automatic big into a 16-team playoff, with 6 at-large bids determined by a committee, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament. Each school would now have equal access to the postseason.

I know, you think I’m a crazy dreamer. I realize this little proposal of mine has less of a chance of happening than Lindsay Lohan finishing her degree in Provo. But it should happen. The NCAA should make it happen. TCU, Utah, Boise State and BYU should be fighting for an equitable system, not just a seat at the big kids table.

How would this effect BYU?
In my plan, no school could be independent. I realize that’s unrealistic with the TV deal of Notre Dame, but that’s how it should be. BYU would be assigned to a conference like everyone else.

I know a lot of BYU fans like independence, not being tied to some lousy conference that creates a lousy TV deal. The prospect of rotating through different BCS schools on the schedule is fun. But imagine BYU in a 12-team conference with the following (and I’m totally making this up): USC, UCLA, Utah, BYU, Boise State, Idaho, UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Colorado and Colorado State. Wouldn’t that be cool? Couldn’t BYU win that now and again?And every conference would have a similar feel, and it would be a huge lift to programs like Idaho who would have home games against some awesome teams and would occasionally be on national TV.

I think a system like this would be more equitable, more fun, and would make things more interesting. I know it’s crazy, but I believe college football would be better with something like this in place.

“you may say I’m a dreamer
but I’m not the only one
i hope some day you’ll join us
and the world will be as one”

Adam is a writer and founder of LoyalCougars.com. His favorite BYU football players include Robbie Bosco, Glen Kozlowski, Erig Drage, Rob Morris and Brandon Doman. He also enjoys candlelit dinners. Adam has been blogging about BYU sports for several years, and was a sportswriter for the Provo Daily Herald many years ago.