The benefit of the current system is that it is better to start at South Florida instead of play second string at Florida or Miami. Under your proposal, it would be better to be second string at Florida.

Here is way to do it. I-AA games should not be considered for ranking purposes and games against teams from conferences not in the BCS should not be counted. If Penn State wants to schedule four games against Mid-American Conference or the Sun Belt for the easy wins.

Another solution would be to require all conference to play nine conference games now that they are all playing 12 games.

If Penn State

1. No I-A/I-AA games. Or to the extent that you allow them, make them risky. Any team that plays a I-AA team must win nine games (excluding the I-AA victory, which wouldn’t count).

2. All I-A teams must play 50% of their OOC games at home. One of the big advantages of scheduling lesser teams is that you can get extra home games. If you force Texas to go to Monroe every time ULM goes to Austin, you change the incentives. Less ticket sales and less hometown interest.

3. Neutral games are determined “home” by whichever team is closer to the neutral site provided that (a) it’s within a certain number of miles, say 500 and (b) it’s not roughly half-way between the two (if the distance split is, say, closer than 60/40%).

This wouldn’t get rid of all of the mismatches, but it would change the calculations. Even if Michigan schedules Western Michigan where they can make the drive and swamp the local fan-base, WM’s stadium only holds 30k or so. There would be a minor loophole for schools that are within close proximity to a huge stadium that they could use (say UCLA at San Jose State), but there are only so many of those situations to go around.

National rankings would still be an incentive, but I believe would become less of one. Cut down on a lot of the mismatches and those that choose to continue to engage in it will be more conspicuous as it becomes less commonplace. Right now, when every team plays at least two creampuffs, it’s harder to hold it against them. It’s easier when UCLA chooses to play San Jose State, but Florida played South Florida. It would be a more balanced situation.

And possibly add #4: Make schedule strength a much more important component of the BCS tabulations. I’m a little hesitant on that one because it puts non-BCS schools at a huge disadvantage when it comes to playing in a BCS game. Utah would love to schedule more Pac 10 teams, but just don’t have the opportunity. A lighter alternative to this would be to weigh the schedule strength more heavily on OOC games. Not entirely sure how this would work, though.

There’s otherwise something to be said for in-state non-conference rivalries like SC-Clemson, Florida-Miami, Georgia-GT, and the like. I suppose teams could be allowed to factor in one “rivalry” game that gets played every year regardless of conference or within-conference division.

If LaTech takes Vanderbilt’s spot, then Tennessee is left playing its big pre-Thanksgiving game against… Louisiana Tech. It’s not hard to see why they would object to that. It’s unlikely (and not unreasonable) that they would object to not getting to play their big in-state rival. At the very least they might want to play one another in an OOC game (a la South Carolina and Clemson), but that would be hard to do with their other commitments. College football scheduling is meticulous. Popping teams in and out of the schedule doesn’t work well for it.

I’m with you on the 72-3 games… to a point. If there were some rule you could put in place to make all OOC games (except one, in cases of OOC rivals that are down on their luck or doing exceptionally well) take place against teams of a similar stature, I’d probably be supportive of that. The devil would be in the details (I would prefer it if the “classes” were based on five year blocks rather than season-by-season, for instance), but that would be workable and could greatly improve the game.

Your plan just goes too far for my tastes. I like teams being a part of a club where teams develop annual rivalries that aren’t chucked when they become temporarily lopsided. And I like that the football teams my alma mater plays are the same as the basketball teams and vice-versa. Or rather, I’m lookwarm to making these associations transient*, at least not for the big sports**.

* – Having schools with no football team play other sports in a conference is no problem since not every school offers every sport, though I think that Notre Dame should fish or cut bait with the Big East. I don’t like “partial memberships” except where it can’t be avoided (typically in the lower levels for football, where a lot of schools don’t have teams).

** – Having separate hockey, track, soccer, and other lower-profile sport conferences would probably make sense (and for hockey they do, I believe). But the Big Four (FB, MBB, WBB, and baseball) gives schools an opportunity to develop rivalries not just against individual teams, but against schools.

And lots of schools are in one conference for football and another for basketball. Why should Duke get to play in an elite football conference just because it has a great basketball team?

Presumably, the scheduling thing is fixable, too. If, say, Vanderbilt gets booted from the SEC and replaced by, say, Louisiana Tech, then LaTech just takes Vandy’s spot in the schedule.

College can be quite exciting because of the innovation and enthusiasm. But it’s not exciting when some patsy is being whooped 72-3 and the seniors get pulled before halftime.

Who cares if they’re not the best in their game? I care a lot more about how entertaining the games are. Spread offenses, which depend on shallower defensive talent, are exciting! Heck, fumbles are exciting!

Why waste your time watching an NCAA game when 99% of the athletes you are seeing are not the best at their sport?

I can see, for nostaliga’s sake, if you went to a school you might want to root for them. But for pure fans of the sport, nothing compares to the NFL.

Even the CFL is more interesting than the college game.