The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
So much has been written about the imminent loss of 10 members of the Pac-12 that one might assume a political writer would be leery of venturing into that fray.
But if Washington State University can go to court and Gov. Jay Inslee can argue that there should always be an Apple Cup regardless of who goes where, it seems this controversy is pretty much open to anyone.
One possible solution occurred to me during a recent trip to England, where people are equally fanatical about their football, even if they use a ball that doesn’t have points on each end.
The number of football teams in the cities and towns throughout the United Kingdom may come close to equaling the number of American colleges with football teams. And they have a large number of football leagues, just as American colleges have multiple conferences. The fans are loyal, vocal and demanding. They pack stadiums and travel long distances to watch their team.
One major difference, however, is that their leagues represent a hierarchy of success, not some outdated description of the membership, like a Big 12 Conference with fewer than 12 members or a Big Ten Conference with more than 10.
The English leagues have relatively neutral if sometimes confusing names. The Championship League is below the Premiere League, and League 1 is below both, although appropriately ahead of League 2. Below that are five more levels of national and regional leagues.
A team’s league membership is not fixed, so the winningest teams in one league are promoted to the league above, and the losingest are “relegated” to the league below.
Newcastle United, a team that had previously fallen on hard times and been relegated, managed to climb back into the Premier League and this year qualified for matches in the prestigious Union of European Football Associations Champions League.
The fans were so excited at the chance to cheer on their lads in such esteemed company that British television news was filled with shots of them traveling to the match in Milan, where they were shown celebrating with belly-flop slides along the sidewalks of that Italian city.
And you thought Cougars fans partied hard when they made it to the Rose Bowl.
What the 133 colleges in the NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision should do is construct a similar pyramid based on the records of those teams over the past 10 years. The 13 with the best records would be in the top rung of the ladder, and next rungs would be comprised of the teams with the records in descending order.
After that, the teams would only play others within their group, except for one game that involves two teams with a long-standing rivalry such as Washington’s Apple Cup. No more early season games featuring a large state university against a small private college that are designed mainly to give the former a practice game and the latter a payday.
At the end of the season, the three teams with the worst record in each league would be relegated, and the three with the best record in the league below would be promoted. The college football championship would be played between the teams with the best records in the top two leagues, and the bowl committees could make the picks from the best teams in any of the leagues.
It would end recurring debates over the nation’s “best” team, such as whether an undefeated team that played in this conference is really better than a team with one loss in that supposedly tougher conference.
All the other college athletic teams could stay in their old regional conferences, so those athletes would be spared the problems of long trips to compete against conference teams on the other side of the country.
Critics might argue that this would be an overtly commercial arrangement, designed more to generate revenue for television networks and colleges with little regard for the welfare of student athletes.
To which I would respond, “And this is different how?”
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