ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070140
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Sitting in the mostly empty RCA Dome three hours before Monday's NCAA championship game, I suddenly found myself not thinking about basketball.
It was football on my mind, and not only because I was in the home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts. It mostly had to do with what I'd seen - again - at last Saturday's basketball Final Four.
The atmosphere with more than 47,000 spectators under the RCA Dome teflon was electric. Bands played, fans roared. It's hard to be blase about late March Madness. Players and coaches matched brawn and brain on one of the biggest sports stages this nation has.
See, college football could have that. No, Division I-A football should have that. A playoff. A championship. There should be nothing mythical about it.
Every year, the Final Four shows football how good it can get. In fact, in one way, football would be better. There would be more money in a big-time football tournament - say, with at least eight teams - than the $205 million CBS will pay for hoops in the 1998 NCAA Tournament.
The networks would love it. They could stuff more commercials into the extra hour-plus it would take to play a football game. It wouldn't kill the bowl games, unless they were games already on the endangered list. The world could use about four fewer bowls anyway.
Incorporate the big bowls into a playoff system. Rotate the national championship site - as the Bowl Alliance does now. The NCAA could run the show, as it does in hoops.
As for those coaches screaming that they won't have anywhere to tell recruits they'll go if their teams finish third or fourth in the league, what has to change? The Carquest and Independence bowls could still play, with similar matchups as now.
The other three NCAA football divisions have 16-team playoffs. Division III may have to add another eight next year. The big schools could play a 16-team bracket in 15 bowls.
Name a committee, similar to the NCAA Basketball Committee chaired this year by Virginia athletic director Terry Holland. Those folks pick the field, using power ratings for at-large picks to go with automatic bids.
There are eight major conferences in I-A. Give each an automatic bid. Then pick the other eight teams most deserving.
It's nothing revolutionary. It's what the hoopheads do. Even football could play a Final Four Saturday at one turfed site. Start one game at 12:30 p.m., the other at 4:30 p.m. Fans could buy a seat for both, or one.
It would sell out. The finalists could move to a different site the following weekend.
So, when are these players going to go to class? When college football playoffs are debated and discussed, the missed class time is always brought up. Why doesn't anyone mention it in hoops?
NCAA champion Arizona was on its campus only four days in a three-week period during the road to the Final Four.
The Wildcats played in Memphis, Tenn., Birmingham, Ala., and Indianapolis - and they didn't miss as much class time as runner-up Kentucky - which also played a conference tournament the Pacific 10 doesn't have.
In football, much of the playoffs would be held during the holiday break between semesters. The championship could be played over the New Year's holiday, or a weekend later, after the national semifinals during Christmas week.
The NCAA is studying whether it should have more control over postseason football - the bowls. It should, and it should adopt a playoff system, where the additional money - the bowls' annual yield is in the $110 million range - could fund more programs and help more schools wipe away some of their Title IX embarassment.
Until it happens, hoops will have college athletics' biggest day at the Final Four. Football could play one, too.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB