This year's ugly College Football season
College Football seems to have hit a point, where the product on the field is getting less interesting. I don't know about everyone else, but I have no interest going to a game that's out of reach for one team before halftime. I wouldn't pay to see it in the stadium, and wouldn't watch it on TV.
I think this is a result of going to 12-game schedules.
What the big schools and a lot of the middle-size schools realized is that with a 50,000+ person attendance and $50+ tickets, along with parking, beer, and concessions, that home games are profitable.
So when the 12th game was added, instead of going from 6 home and 5 away games to 6 home and 6 away, they want to get to 7 home games and 5 away. Many have ended up 8 home and 4 away games.
You would think that adding an additional game to the schedule would produce more interesting games, but schools went a different route. Instead of teams like Alabama scheduling BCS level teams, they're scheduling FCS level teams. Alabama fans are getting the chance to watch Alabama vs Chattanooga and Alabama vs Georgia State. Alabama has 8 home games this year. It looks like the top BCS programs schedule a home-and-home with one other BCS school, play their conference schedule, maybe one nonconference rivalry game, and fill the rest of the schedule with cupcakes
The Big 10 and Pac 12 nearly pulled off an agreement where
each Big 10 team would play a regular season game against a Pac 12 team. I was excited, expecting better matchups. But, once the schools explained to the commissioners about 7 and 8 home games vs 6 home games, this agreement was quickly cancelled. Instead, we get Michigan's nonconference schedule of Central Michigan, Akron, Connecticut, and (for now) Notre Dame
If I were a season ticket holder, I'd be upset at matchups like Ohio State vs Florida A&M, Oregon vs Nichols State, and Florida State vs Bethune-Cookman. And as a Kent State fan, it's no fun seeing Kent State playing LSU, Penn State, and Alabama. It's a good paycheck for the Athletic Department, but I won't see any of the stuff I go to games to see. And I doubt the Alabama, LSU, and Penn State fans are seeing much either. As a regular at Kent State games, getting a 5-game home schedule isn't good either
There's a debate about which conferences are the toughest. For all that debate, it's hard to tell, because the teams from the top conferences don't schedule many games between each other. The tough SEC played a total of 13 games against FCS level teams. They only played 7 nonconference games against teams ranked in the top 25 at the time of the game. We have to watch the bowl games to see those.
The SEC played 7 games against the ACC, 4 games against the American Athletic, 3 Big Twelve games, 2 PAC-12 games, 1 Big Ten game. They played more games against the FCS-level Southern Conference than most of these. How do you know if the SEC is better than the PAC-12 if they've only played 2 games?
I don't know a good solution to this. I would like to add a
requirement that for teams to qualify for the 'College Football Playoff' starting next year, they need to play teams from at least 3 of the BCS conferences. I'd also make a maximum of 7 home games allowed per season. The 12 SEC schools played a total of 9 nonconference away games.
I like the fact that the MAC and the G5 conferences are making arrangements for separate bowl games from the P5 conferences.
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This year's ugly College Football season
