College Football is a Terrible Product

[TrapGame]

The NCAA literally refuses to investigate a blue blood for their incredibly blatant cheating, and is ran by the big schools. Notice how every transfer is granted eligibility if it's to a big school? Any ranking system they do will be about money.

Plus they are still human, and thus can be bought.

That's a good point.

[ShotgunDawg]

Which is what this thread should be talking about.

Clemson had some football history but not a whole lot. In 99, we beat them pretty good. Since then Clemson has gotten better and better.

I see their situation as similar to ours. In state rival. Georgia just down the road to recruit against.

So what happened for them to get so strong? Their payroll rival that of a Pro-team? A lot of credit goes to Dabo but there has to be more to the story

Clemson just took FSU?s spot as the ACC super power who only plays 1-2 top 25 caliber teams a year.

Clemson would be a slightly better version of South Carolina if in the SEC. something close to Auburn.

They struck gold on a great coach and could keep that coach and build the program due to easy schedules.

[Todd4State]

Probably worth noting that Clemson made their way into prime time, so it can be done

The interesting thing about Clemson is they stuck with Swinney after a 6-7 season and five straight losses to South Carolina. Maybe some of our fans should take notes.

[Todd4State]

The other thing that helps Clemson is they have boosters that will pay for football players. They were every bit as involved as Ole Miss was with Nkemdiche and this was before Clemson became Clemson. Our boosters need to step it up some on the elite in state players that keep going out of state.

[War Machine Dawg]

With all conference schedules, every game involving a championship contender yesterday was a non-competitive blowout.

The sport cannot grow like this. There are currently 3-5 programs that are playing a different sport than everyone else and it destroys the competitive nature of the sport.

Hopefully the new transfer portal rule will help. We?ll see

Everyone wanted a playoff and those who thought it was a terrible idea were vilified. This was a foreseeable consequence of making the bowls irrelevant. Only a few teams make the playoffs, so all the top croots go to those schools, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that's nearly impossible to break.

The only viable fix is changing the scholarship limit to 60 and forcing the talent pool to be spread more broadly. Expanding the playoffs isn't a real fix because it'll only add a couple of teams to the cycle without raising the floor.

[ShotgunDawg]

Everyone wanted a playoff and those who thought it was a terrible idea were vilified. This was a foreseeable consequence of making the bowls irrelevant. Only a few teams make the playoffs, so all the top croots go to those schools, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that's nearly impossible to break.

The only viable fix is changing the scholarship limit to 60 and forcing the talent pool to be spread more broadly. Expanding the playoffs isn't a real fix because it'll only add a couple of teams to the cycle without raising the floor.

Maybe the best post you've ever made.

Honestly, I have always supported a playoff, but the case you made is very compelling to the problem with it and one which I hadn't considered.

Whatever the case, it has to be fixed or the sport will slowly die.

Anyone that doesn't see where this train is headed is either a fan of one of those 5 schools or isn't thinking this through

[Maverick91]

With all conference schedules, every game involving a championship contender yesterday was a non-competitive blowout.

The sport cannot grow like this. There are currently 3-5 programs that are playing a different sport than everyone else and it destroys the competitive nature of the sport.

Hopefully the new transfer portal rule will help. We?ll see

Which is so weird, because if we look at the star power per team there are a lot of teams that should be competing together week in and week out. Just on talent alone. This truly makes me think that Coaching does play a ridiculous role. A lot of these top ten teams talent wise cannot hold water with Ohio State, Clemson, or Bama.

https://247sports.com/season/2019-fo...lentcomposite/

[ShotgunDawg]

Which is so weird, because if we look at the star power per team there are a lot of teams that should be competing together week in and week out. Just on talent alone. This truly makes me think that Coaching does play a ridiculous role. A lot of these top ten teams talent wise cannot hold water with Ohio State, Clemson, or Bama.

https://247sports.com/season/2019-fo...lentcomposite/

3-5 teams are still getting all the first picks regardless if the recruiting rankings say that their SHOULD be more competition.

The sport just needs reform. The NFL is putting an outstanding product on the field each and every week with close games that engage audiences for 3.5 hours whereas college football fans are engages for 15 minutes.

The popularity of the sport can't improve if we continue down this road. There is just no way.

[Maverick91]

3-5 teams are still getting all the first picks regardless if the recruiting rankings say that their SHOULD be more competition.

The sport just needs reform. The NFL is putting an outstanding product on the field each and every week with close games that engage audiences for 3.5 hours whereas college football fans are engages for 15 minutes.

The popularity of the sport can't improve if we continue down this road. There is just no way.

I wont disagree. It was nice to see people fall this past weekend, Penn State. The NCAA isn't going to get down into the roots and truly investigate blue bloods. One thing that could help is put a star cap on teams. I know a lot of people don't put a lot of stock into the star power. But, it does matter.

Let us say they put a cap of thirty 4 star recruits on each team and three 5 star recruits. Please be aware that is just within the first 19 teams on the power ranking system. A few things would happen:

1. Doing this alone would force 207 4 star recruits to be spread across the country.
2. 47 5 star recruits to be spread across the country.
3. Coaching, strength training, evaluation, and player development importance would go through the roof. We think those are important know, I don't think we could fathom the importance of it moving forward.

This alone would make the talent level at the top 30 schools to probably always land at the same.

[Hot Rock]

Let's face it... college football never has been fair and will never be fair. Bama & Ohio State and the select few pay it's players better because it has more fans willing to pay. $100 handshakes that OBJ was giving out was just pocket change, these guys are getting paid and I don't blame the players at all. In many cases, its the after football life that is different as well. They get jobs after football they would never have gotten.

No matter how many scholarships you give, they will always have the best players simply because they pay more. That's the way it is and I don't see it changing by limiting scholarships. All that does is give fewer players a chance at an education. Believe it or not, some do take advantage and get a degree in something that gets them out of the factories.

The NFL is a far superior product but I don't have an NFL Team, i have a college team so I am a college football fan.

[StarkVegasSteve]

Which is what this thread should be talking about.

Clemson had some football history but not a whole lot. In 99, we beat them pretty good. Since then Clemson has gotten better and better.

I see their situation as similar to ours. In state rival. Georgia just down the road to recruit against.

So what happened for them to get so strong? Their payroll rival that of a Pro-team? A lot of credit goes to Dabo but there has to be more to the story

Dabo built a culture. And a lot of credit for Clemson's rise goes to Terry Don Phillips, their former AD. He got out of Dabo's way, let him build, and didn't listen to fans and alums who wanted him gone early on. It also helps that they're in the ACC where they only have 2-3 tough games a year. Although you can honestly say the same about any elite program, and that includes Bama.

[ShotgunDawg]

I wont disagree. It was nice to see people fall this past weekend, Penn State. The NCAA isn't going to get down into the roots and truly investigate blue bloods. One thing that could help is put a star cap on teams. I know a lot of people don't put a lot of stock into the star power. But, it does matter.

Let us say they put a cap of thirty 4 star recruits on each team and three 5 star recruits. Please be aware that is just within the first 19 teams on the power ranking system. A few things would happen:

1. Doing this alone would force 207 4 star recruits to be spread across the country.
2. 47 5 star recruits to be spread across the country.
3. Coaching, strength training, evaluation, and player development importance would go through the roof. We think those are important know, I don't think we could fathom the importance of it moving forward.

This alone would make the talent level at the top 30 schools to probably always land at the same.

Star rankings are subjective and thus can't be used as a way to create parity in college football.

If players ever get paid, you could have a salary cap, but, until then, limiting scholarships is about the only way to regulate things.

[ShotgunDawg]

It also helps that they're in the ACC where they only have 2-3 tough games a year. .

Only playing 2-3 tough games a year allows you to build a winning culture.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

Everyone wanted a playoff and those who thought it was a terrible idea were vilified. This was a foreseeable consequence of making the bowls irrelevant. Only a few teams make the playoffs, so all the top croots go to those schools, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that's nearly impossible to break.

The only viable fix is changing the scholarship limit to 60 and forcing the talent pool to be spread more broadly. Expanding the playoffs isn't a real fix because it'll only add a couple of teams to the cycle without raising the floor.

Not sure I agree with the first paragraph, just because the Blue Bloods were already really separated from the rest of us going back to the mid 2000's. USC has fallen off and been replaced by Clemson, LSU and OSU are still there, Texas fell off and is replaced by Bama... but the overall theme of 4-5 super talented dominant programs is still here.

I think under the BCS players still picked programs they thought could make the Championship game, now they pick who they think can make the playoffs, but I'm not sure there's any difference- they still congregate to roughly the same number of programs

I 100% agree with the scholarship limit stuff. 60 might be a bit too low, I am sympathetic to the need to red shirt and develop some of these 18 year olds and I think if we go too low you'll have an increase in horror stories of a barely 18 year old out of shape LB with terrible form getting destroyed because he couldn't redshirt. NFL struggles to put make do with a 54 man roster but those guys are all ready to go physically and technique wise. 65-70 scholarships is perfect to me imo

[maroonmania]

College football is the WORST product of any popular fan sport out there. I've never seen any sport where there was such a divide between 3 or 4 programs and the rest of the field. Basically everyone but those teams are playing for nothing more than bowl positioning. And everything the NCAA does with rule changes just keeps widening the separation between the elite programs and everyone else. So now we have things like free transfers every year and NLI coming onboard that will just keep supporting the status quo if not making it worse. Things like forcing every non-graduate to sit out a year if they transfer (like it always had been until the 'hardship' waiver came out) and the biggest item of cutting scholarships back (both total and yearly) will not even be considered or discussed. So we will continue to have a glut of football scholarships so that Bama, Clemson, Ohio State and the like can continue to sign all the elite athletes they want and then process out 4 or 5 every year that don't cut it there while a sport like college baseball can't even offer enough scholarship money to get most players to even seriously consider college if they go anywhere in the Top 15-20 rounds of the MLB draft. The ONLY thing that saves college football across the board as an overall product though is brand loyalty and allegiance from alumni and sidewalk fans.

[ShotgunDawg]

Not sure I agree with the first paragraph, just because the Blue Bloods were already really separated from the rest of us going back to the mid 2000's. USC has fallen off and been replaced by Clemson, LSU and OSU are still there, Texas fell off and is replaced by Bama... but the overall theme of 4-5 super talented dominant programs is still here.

I think under the BCS players still picked programs they thought could make the Championship game, now they pick who they think can make the playoffs, but I'm not sure there's any difference- they still congregate to roughly the same number of programs

I 100% agree with the scholarship limit stuff. 60 might be a bit too low, I am sympathetic to the need to red shirt and develop some of these 18 year olds and I think if we go too low you'll have an increase in horror stories of a barely 18 year old out of shape LB with terrible form getting destroyed because he couldn't redshirt. NFL struggles to put make do with a 54 man roster but those guys are all ready to go physically and technique wise. 65-70 scholarships is perfect to me imo

60 man is too low, but, with FR coming in more ready than ever to contribute, 85 scholarships is a completely outdated policy that only hurts the game

I'm for 70-75 scholarships. I'm also OK with gradually lowering it until we see the desired outcome. Lower it to 80 for 5 years and see if the games get better. Then lower it to 75 and see what things look like. Something has to happen though

[Lord McBuckethead]

You don?t get it.

The recruit hoarding prevents anyone else from remotely being able to step up and compete. The class structure of the sport simply won?t allow it.

The sport cannot grow like this. College is the equivalent of giving 3 NFL teams all the first round draft picks every year. It doesn?t work

Even without the recruit hoarding, the only ones transfering are guys that were at best second string. Also, all of Bama's second string tend to transfer to a bunch of different teams. So even with transfers, the talent is spread out without the potential of 1 team getting enough talent to challenge Bama week in and out.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Good point.
Bama will never have a position of weakness ever again. They will just take the best of the best transfers each off season to fill a recruiting gap they may have.

[ShotgunDawg]

College football is the WORST product of any popular fan sport out there. I've never seen any sport where there was such a divide between 3 or 4 programs and the rest of the field. Basically everyone but those teams are playing for nothing more than bowl positioning. And everything the NCAA does with rule changes just keeps widening the separation between the elite programs and everyone else. So now we have things like free transfers every year and NLI coming onboard that will just keep supporting the status quo if not making it worse. Things like forcing every non-graduate to sit out a year if they transfer (like it always had been until the 'hardship' waiver came out) and the biggest item of cutting scholarships back (both total and yearly) will not even be considered or discussed. So we will continue to have a glut of football scholarships so that Bama, Clemson, Ohio State and the like can continue to sign all the elite athletes they want and then process out 4 or 5 every year that don't cut it there while a sport like college baseball can't even offer enough scholarship money to get most players to even seriously consider college if they go anywhere in the Top 15-20 rounds of the MLB draft. The ONLY thing that saves college football across the board as an overall product though is brand loyalty and allegiance from alumni and sidewalk fans.

100% agree, but there is a crisis on the horizon.

When sports fans see professional sports that have good games, competitive divisions, etc they are going to slowly and surely migrate to those sports and abandon their passion for college football.

Until 10-15 years ago, college football could get away with the current set-up because recruiting rankings didn't exist and people were largely ignorant to the talent discrepancy between teams. However, now that people can easily google the lack of talent distribution, it's highlighted what a waste of time and money the sport is. 90+% of power 5 teams literally have absolutely NO SHOT at winning anything other than a meaningless bowl game.

To save the sport, something has to be done.

[maroonmania]

Even without the recruit hoarding, the only ones transfering are guys that were at best second string. Also, all of Bama's second string tend to transfer to a bunch of different teams. So even with transfers, the talent is spread out without the potential of 1 team getting enough talent to challenge Bama week in and out.

Yea, but the ones transferring are the ones that Bama, or other elites, misevaluated and want to offload. If player A and player B are coming out of HS and Bama had to sign one or the other based on who they want more and live with their potential misevaluation if they pick the wrong one, that is a LOT different than them being able to sign both, figure out which one they want more, and then send the other one on their way. So the talent is not exactly getting spread out in the same way with transfers as it would if scholarships were cut back.