Instead of talking about Coach Saban and Coach Harsin today and tomorrow, I’m going to talk about all the issues in college football and some possible ideas. If you want to read about Alabama and Auburn, please refer to my May columns as I did extensive pieces on each team. There is too much happening in college football right now and we just need to hit the breaks a little. There is good stuff, but some other stuff is unclear. Here is a look at some of the issues right now and what can be done to help them become positives.

The 12 team playoff

First of all, I like it. It gives teams like Coastal Carolina and BYU and teams like A&M and Florida, all of which had very good seasons last year, a chance to play for a national championship.

The format is: the 6 highest ranked conference champions and the 6 highest ranked teams as determined by the Selection Committee will play in the playoff.

The top 4 teams, seeds 1-4, get a bye in the first week and the 8 other teams compete in the first round. In the first 4 games, the higher seeded team will play at their home stadium. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played at bowl games. The National Championship Game will be played at a major bowl site as always i.e. Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange, Fiesta, Peach…It gives other teams a shot.

There are questions on playing too many games which may lead to injuries and hurt the quality of play the deeper the playoffs go on. I’d like to see them cut the season down to 10 games, with the SEC playing 8 conference games as usual, 6 within the division, though that could be changed to more East-West games, and 2 out of conference games, maybe a major out of conference game and an easier contest. There would be an SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and PAC-12 title game, and then commence the playoff. The other conference could figure out how they want to handle their regular seasons, but 10 games would be sufficient.

Nick Saban has said all along that the playoff devalues the bowl games, and it does. But I do think there are teams and players that still like going to bowl games. It is a great experience for the players. I do endorse this 12 team playoff. They’ll need to fine tune it some. Dabo Swinney is not for it. He says his players don’t want it. The 12 game season and 3 or 4 extra games would seem excessive, so a 10 game schedule could rectify those concerns.

Looks like it’ll be 4 teams through 2021 and 2022, but possibly in 2023, we’ll have a 12 team format. With the 10 game regular season, the most a team could play would be 14 to 15 games. That seems reasonable.

NIL

This thing is mind spinning. Bryce Young is reported to have endorsements of up to $1 million coming in. I’m glad the players are getting some compensation, but there needs to be some regulations put back in place to get this thing under control. Young will have a lot of pressure on him to produce with this kind of financial windfall. I read this morning where a high school basketball player is set to make several millions in endorsements before he enters college. That’s out of control. Somebody, really the NCAA, needs to step up, and get off their lazy tails, and do something to control this. I’m OK with athletes getting some compensation, but there needs to be limits on it.

Vaccines

Nick Saban reported that nearly 90 percent of his team is vaccinated. That is really good. The SEC threshold is 80 percent when teams can relax protocols. Kirby Smart reported over 80% on Tuesday. There are 6 out of 14 SEC teams that are reported to be 80% vaccinated. Saban and Smart are big proponents of it. To play football in the fall, the players need to be educated more and they need to get the vaccine as soon as they possibly can with this Delta variant running rampant now.

Bobby Bowden

Some sadder news to report as Bobby Bowden has a terminal medical condition at 91 years old. There were no other specifics on what he actually has contracted. He did have COVID last fall. Jimbo Fisher called him an amazing coach and even better person. Won multiple ACC titles and 2 national championships in 1993 and 1999. Class act all the way. Thoughts and prayers go out to Coach Bowden and his family.

Texas and Oklahoma….

Have been rumored to be attempting to get in the SEC. The Houston Chronicle reported yesterday a decision will come down in the next two weeks. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey had no comment on it.

Not sure about this. I mean you talk about a super conference. I wouldn’t like it for the Big 12. I’ll just reserve judgment on this till there is more concrete evidence. That would be a complicated exit for those schools with TV deals with the Big 12 Network, the Longhorn Network and FOX. I’d rather have them in the Big 12. My daughter goes to TCU and really gets excited for the Texas game. It’s a big rivalry. Obviously, the appeal is financial for those two schools. But both schools, particularly Texas, are loaded. How much is enough.

There’s just a lot going on in college football. Like to talk about football more, the game, the competition, the personalities, coaches and players. Ready for this all this to settle down so we can do that.

Will have team profiles coming up in the next 5 weeks prior to kickoff.