College Sports Are Beginning To Suck

Don't get me wrong, I love college sports. There is not anything in this world that can match a intense rivalry college basketball game for me. I love a lot of things about college sports... passion, players playing for pride and not money, the love for the game. I could go on and on but college sports is really beginning to SUCK!

I'm tired of the rat race. Every team that thinks they can move up to make more money is trying to move up. Each conference is trying to get better to earn a bigger television contract. What happened to college sports and their affiliation with school pride, love for the game and the attitude that it wasn't all about the money. Maybe it was about giving a great experience to student athletes or helping a under privileged athlete earn a degree and go on to a better life. What about natural rivalries? What about the game?

College sports administrators have forgotten the real reason that we love college sports. Look at the New Mexico State Aggie football program. We have been on the longest bowl-less drought in the nation and yet thousands of regional fans always come out to see the Aggies play the Lobos or the Miners. That is what it is about. That feeling of supporting your school and your peers on the field. It is about being an alumni and having school pride. It is about being proud of where you are from.

By realigning with where the money is instead of where your rivals and your best fit is schools are ruining college sports while the NCAA sits around and watches. They need to take control. It is ridiculous that Louisiana Tech has to travel to play Hawaii and they are in the same conference. How does that work? Or that UTEP and NMSU are about the same size school with similar athletic departments, they are 40 minutes away from each other and they aren't in the same conference. It is absolutely unheard of. Everyone is chasing the dollar rather than doing the right thing.

In pro sports you don't hear about the Colts wanting to transfer to the NFC East because they have a bunch of good teams. Which brings up a major point, in the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc., every team in the league has an equal chance to win the championship. In college sports they don't. The BCS is really the root of all evil. It is slowing tearing apart all of college sports.

The NCAA needs to take action. This is what I propose they should do. Place every BCS football team into a regional conference being mindful of the size of the university and their natural rivals... Obviously even though Toledo and Ohio State are close to each other they shouldn't be in the same conference. There is 119 teams in the D1 (and I added one more) so we would have 10 conferences with 12 teams


Pacific 12
--North--
Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
Utah
Boise State

--South--
California
Stanford
UCLA
USC
Arizona
Arizona State

Western 12
--North--
Idaho
Air Force
Utah State
BYU
Wyoming
Colorado State

--South--
San Jose State
Fresno State
Nevada
UNLV
SDSU
Hawaii

Southwest 12
--West--
New Mexico
New Mexico State
UTEP
TCU
Texas State
SMU

--East--
North Texas
Baylor
Houston
Rice
Tulsa
Memphis

Central 12
--South--
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Louisiana State

--North--
Kansas
Kansas State
Colorado
Nebraska
Missouri
Arkansas

MidSouth 12
--West--
University of Louisiana-Lafayette
University of Louisiana-Monroe
Louisiana Tech
Tulane
University of Southern Mississippi
Troy

--East--
University of Alabama-Birmingham
University of Central Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Arkansas State
Middle Tennessee

South 12
--West--
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Alabama
Auburn
Tennessee
Kentucky

--East--
Miami
USF
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Georgia Tech

North Central 12
--West--
Iowa State
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Illinois

--East--
Michigan
Michigan State
Norte Dame
Purdue
Indiana
Ohio State

MidCentral 12
--West--
Central Michigan
Western Michigan
Ball State
NIU
Miami (OH)
Bowling Green

--East--
Eastern Michigan
Toledo
Kent State
Akron
University of Ohio
Buffalo

Atlantic 12
--East--
South Carolina
Clemson
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Duke
Wake Forest

--West--
Vanderbilt
Louisville
Cincinnati
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Eastern Carolina

Northeast 12
--West--
West Virginia
Marshall
Navy
Maryland
Rutgers
Temple

--North--
Boston College
UCONN
Pittsburgh
Penn State
Army
Syracuse

So obviously some conferences such as the Central 12, South 12, North Central 12 and the Pacific 12 are going to attract the most media attention but I think we put together many natural rivalries together. Think about how much more intense rivalry games are when they really count for a lot, when they determine championships. Obviously there are still some flaws. It would be hard to have a perfect system in college sports but we can do better than what is going on now. With this system I have above I would suggest keeping the same playoff tournaments in everything but football... football would have conference championship games to send a representative to the NCAA College Football Tournament. You would have still have the coaches poll, ap poll, etc., to determine seeding. The tournament would have a play-in game for the 7,8,9 & 10 seeds.

8 seed vs 9 seed
1 seed versus the winner 8 vs. 9

4 seed versus 5 seed

3 seed versus 6 seed

2 seed versus the winner 7 vs. 10
7 seed versus 10 seed

Besides the tournament the rest of college football would receive bowl bids like how it is done now. I know it's not perfect so I would love to hear you feedback. Let me know what you think! Oh yeah and instead of teams realigning themselves they would be evaluated by a selection committee and realigned appropriately as needed.

-DJ