May 17, 2012 at 6:18 am, by
Carl
Two years aog, I wrote then about the coming challenges, issues and potential (good and bad) for the country relative to the Internet. I think the most powerful bit in that blog post was this:
Negative Implications for the Brain
Yet, increasingly as my daughters have aged toward their teen years, I have worried about the time they have spent with media. Research over the past 30 years has raised the negative specter of too much media. And while the above researchers try to differentiate between TV and computer media, other experts see this as the same negative issue. In the April issue ofFast Company, the magazine took a look at the impact of technology on education.
While the positive article was promoting much of the good feelings as the Wired article, they mentioned a troubling fact in passing. “American children now spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media—as much time as they spend in school. Even more remarkably[or negatively perhaps—ed] they multitask across screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours.” And that is happening in a myriad of ways—ipods, smartphones, computers, TV, game systems and so on.
So, worse than TV days, now we have children consuming 11 hours of content, created or not. What, I wonder, does that do to the brain? I know for myself, having been raised in the 70s, I don’t see much of an issue, but then I am not the multitasker. In fact, what I see in me verses what I see in my daughter is what troubles me. She is one of the examples—watching, listening, writing, all at the same time in a variety of ways. And, her work via school suffers because of it. She struggles to stay focused. Many of my college student display the same sort of problem.
Later in that same blog post, I wrote about one of my now-favorite quotes about the Internet—that we are devolving the brain and, as one researcher said, “training our brains for crap.” I said this:
Well, in the same Wired magazine, another article about the Internet presented the research of UCLA professor of psychiatry Gary Small who has put research to my concerns. What Small has found is that the Internet actually rewires our brain neural pathways. While this could be a positive or a negative, and we are just on the cusp of decades of research to determine a more full picture, Small’s observations are chilling.
Training our brains for crap
The article shares, “Dozens of studies by psychologists, neurobiologists, and educators point to the same conclusion: when we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.. . .[The Internet] is turning us into shallower thinkers, literally changing the structure of our brain.”
One researcher from Stanford put it this way: “Intensive multitaskers are suckers for irrelevancy; everything distracts them.” Michael Merzenich, from the field of neuroplasticity, says that the Internet and how we use it is “training our brains to pay attention to crap.”
Well, two years later, things are not better. I don’t think they are going to get any better. This is the new normal, dealing with the noise, having to decide how to fight back…or if that is even possible. My family has been recently discussing the best ways to help us each move forward…how to have less TV, less Internet, how to get outside even more. I think we are actually well-balanced; we certainly are well aware of these issues (I make sure of that), yet even as conscious as we are to the challenges, we still drift like everyone else. We get lost in the noise of overwhelming options, information input thrust at us from a myriad of devices and source.
I ended the blog post of 2010 saying this: At best, we can arm ourselves with knowledge. We can determine that after reading this post, its time to get up from the computer. We can choose to do something tangible like building something, reading a real book or helping at some non-profit organization. And we can warn others.
Today, I am not so sure. I think we certainly do keep warning others, but I think we have to
become more aggressive in fighting back to gain control over our brains, our times. In the Bible, we know God set up the idea of “the Sabbath” which was meant to be a day of rest from the normal work of life. As the noise of Internet, of always on, of location awareness increases, you should start to implement a weekly Sabbath from electronic connection. Turn off the TV. Turn off the Internet in your home. Put your phone, iPod, Kindle Fire or other device into a drawer and close it. Sit in silence. Read a book…a real book. Better, go be with people, real people and just talk. Be present, just you and them.
Appreciate the moment. You never know…you may not have too many left where turning off remains an option.
May 15, 2012 at 6:39 am, by
Carl
As both a professor and a pastor, let alone someone trying to help others learn to Live Well, I often find myself dealing with someone claiming to “need” something. Usually, they need a better grade or they need my help; sometimes this comes up in a conversation about a possession desire as in “I need a new phone.”
Over the 22 years of my marriage, my wife and I have relentlessly pursued simplicity as a style of life. And let me tell you, it is not easy. Increasingly life brings demands and pressures, desires are broadcast on the TV screen or “planned obsolesce” brings force to you in terms of deciding if you really will upgrade or not.
In those moments, when someone says something involves a “need,” the question comes back challenging that idea. ”Do you really need that?” One of us, my wife or I, will often say, “Well, ‘need’ is a funny word.” And by that, what we mean is that the thing is not really a need but a want. Recently our van of 10 years died on us; it was all quite inconvenient, especially since we would have preferred to try and trade it in for at least a few thousand dollars. Instead, it was now scrap metal.
From one point of view, we “needed” to get a new van. Yet, upon scrutiny, the reality was that “need is a funny word.” We didn’t NEED it. We need air to breathe and food for sustenance. We don’t need a new van. If we had to, we could take the solid public transportation here in Orlando. And, we did still have my truck, as well as my motorcycle that I was more than happy to ride.
My online friend Seth Godin touched on this issue recently in this post:
When people have their basic needs met, it’s not uncommon for wants to magically become needs. It’s our hardwired instinct to seek to fill unmet needs.
That pays off for any marketer that has persuaded his market that they need what he sells. It backfires when those ‘needs’ are seen for what they actually are–luxuries.
May 10, 2012 at 6:29 am, by
Carl
Through the first two hundred and seventy-five years of English speaking existence in North America, 1608 – 1883, the general idea of coming to the New World was to come to find wide open spaces and a sense of freedom and independence unknown in Europe, even in England were the small size of the island prohibited easy access to land. Americans, as the citizens of the United States called themselves, could generally provide for all of their needs. However, in the next forty years, everything would change; by 1923 half of the country lived in urban areas, no longer “one with the land” or “living off the land.”
That is how Chapter 10 opens from my latest book, Tracking the Storm, which I finished last year. This tenth installment is free for you (find the earlier sections here). You can download a pdf if you enjoy reading on your computer or also purchase a printed copy of the book.
This upheaval was caused by the Industrial Revolution. Historians debate exactly when and how the event fully happened, but suffice it to say that through the 19th century, concepts of industrialism were building, mostly in England. There, an impact was an explosion of urban centers built around industry. In the United States, the transcontinental railroad that we saw contributed to the coming Civil War became the dominant force in the country for the next 60 years, provoking a late 19th century explosion of more “industrial revolution.”
It was in that setting that individuals began to worry about their own independence as more and more goods, and the prices for those goods, were determined by factors and people existing far beyond their farm or house. As urbanism exploded in the US, the cities were largely unprepared for this rush of people. You have to keep in mind the journey we have taken in this book. The desire for personal freedom that fueled the 275 years of development in North America meant that the government did not, could not, dictate to the people. Government, as an active visible construct was still largely an unknown factor except in places such as the Reconstruction South; after the Compromise of 1877, it disappeared in the South as well. Even in the 1880s, most people “saw” the government only at the Post Office. This was the ultimate creation of the Founders.
Yet, in a setting where thousands of people lived on top of one another, where there wasn’t any simple water supply, where food could not be easily grown, questions about responsibility for things like health care, crime prevention, clean water, fire prevention or even education had no easy answer without government. Thus, while rural citizens were concerned about the growth of economic power of corporations and the seeming erosion of “life as we have known it,” urban citizens were feeling a different kind of oppression relative to quality of life.
The push for change would emerge first from the plains of Middle America, but would soon be joined by workers from the urban north. Leaders and reformers like Jane Addams and Jacob Riis would begin trying to raise the consciousness needed for change in the urban cities. They and other groups of concerned citizens would coalesce in the 1880s around a new political party, the Populists.
From the late 1870s through 1896, the Populists, like the Abolitionists before them, would move slowly, creating momentum through consistency. By the 1896 election, there was some evidence that if they handled this election well, that they could supplant the Democrats as the number two party. The election of 1896 would be similar to that of 1856 when the Republicans erupted on the scene. However, it was not to be.
At the 1896 Democratic convention, a young politician, William Jennings Bryan, exploded onto the scene. Much like then Senator Barak Obama’s electrifying moment in the 2004 Democratic convention, Bryan took the convention by storm. Unlike 2004, however, the rules were very different at that time regarding nominations and Bryan was surprisingly chosen as the Party’s nominee (as many Democrats in 2004 wished could have happened with Obama). Bryan’s power came not just from his brilliance as a speaker, but his topic. He addressed the Convention using the same language as the Populists; in effect, he stole their thunder.
The Populists had waited to hold their convention, assuming both the Democrats and the Republicans would nominate fairly normal candidates. Then, they believed, they could ride into the homes of average Americans with their explosive new ideas. See, the Populists were radicals of the time, and largely, their number one agenda was spreading Democracy. To them, the ills of the country, including the corruption with government, could be healed through more government, leadership that could be controlled through more Democracy. At the time, only male property owners could vote, though the 15th Amendment had altered that to open voting to all men, white or black. In the South, Democrats made sure that the newly freed slaves would not be allowed to vote and by the 1880s, the South was a single-party system. Still, the overall percentage of voters was very low compared to overall population in the country, so the Populists hopped on the “Democracy is best” bandwagon that was gaining steam worldwide.
Of course, while not the focus of this paper, as we have alluded to previously, Democracy was NOT what the Founders had intended. The men who wrote the Constitution believed that most people were ill equipped to accurately participate in governing. They believed that Democracy gives way to “mob rule” and a situation where minority opinions could never gain a fair hearing. In fact, the general evidence of participation in voting would seem to support the Founders. James Madison claimed that Democracy were explosive and would not protect private property. However, in the 1880s, the Populists thought that more democracy would protect average people.
The candidacy of Bryan, however, doomed the Populists as a party. . .but not their ideals. In the 1900 election, the Populists were nowhere to be seen, and the Democratic Party started its move from most conservative party to most progressive party. Yet, in the early 1900s, another term was being used to explain the new sense of activism that was sweeping the country—Progressivism. The Progressive movement would become the poster child for the changes emerging from the previous era of the Gilded Age. The majority of those ideas were concepts that started with the Populists, including women’s suffrage, national income tax, direct election of US Senators and an 8-hour work day.
The Progressive movement would lead to a trio of Presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson—who championed more and more progressive ideas. Wilson would ultimately lead the country through World War I that would dampen many citizens’ support for Progressivism. Wilson’s decision to get into the war was mostly an expression of the values of the Progressive Movement. All three Progressive Presidents had taken the country into more aggressive position in foreign policy decisions, both in our hemisphere and into the Pacific. Now, after the war, the country seemed to explode in a raucous period of living called The Roaring Twenties.
However, there were still serious issues relative to how citizens succeeded, found independence, or experienced their role in the country. They didn’t know it when the 1928 election took place, but the cycle had once again taken place, moving the country through the High of the post-Civil War years, then the Third Great Awakening fed the progressive energy, and after that, the Unraveling of the World War I era. Though the hopes of the Populists had come true, life was not really much better. A huge disparity in income among the citizens was hidden behind the new creation of installment purchasing. The promises of more democracy had not really brought any real change in politics. Government was bigger, supposedly doing more to protect the citizen in broad general terms, but things were still very tough for the rural citizens as well as urban poor. Corruption still seemed ever-present, and though Democracy had promised to decrease the impact of money on elections, the reverse was more true—now money could more easily sway the masses to their bidding and the start of “Senators for life” was upon us.
*********************
You can read the rest of chapter 10 in Tracking the Storm; the book provides powerful clues about what is coming, rapidly, to the United States. There is little doubt that a storm is approaching the country, the outer edges of the winds already swirling around us. What does that portend for the nation? Through the clues of history, we can find direction and steps to undertake to prepare. Many believe there won’t be a storm, or maybe that the worst is over. With history as a guide, I demonstrate that we haven’t yet even reached the Great Crisis.
Gripping and “a scary yet necessary read,” Tracking the Storm moves through the past 400 years of Anglo-American history to illustrate the various clues provided that show the steps to the coming crisis. I will tell the story of political instability, economic distress, rapid technological changes and a growing philosophical divide that challenged previous generations. At the end of each Great Crisis, the nation had been radically changed. Pick up your copy of Tracking the Storm today!
May 8, 2012 at 5:49 am, by
Carl
A few weeks back, I wrote about how frustrating it is when a student drops out of the course, especially when they are passing. It is equally frustrating to watch a student never try, and then get the “not surprising” failing grades, and then quit. As I wrote last time, 25% of my course grade comes from easy, in-class work or even merely showing up prepared. There is simply no challenge to those assessments, assuming you do the bare minimum and pay attention in the class. Still, along the way, so many students fail because they do not try hard enough.
I will give back the major assessments and some students will get the inevitable 65 or 58 or 43 or worse. I will beg them to come talk to me so we can fix this error early. Most never do…stunning right? They fail something and get an invitation to visit me to fix the issue, and yet they won’t. One semester, I even offered students a free “new life” concept where they could re-take any exam as many times as necessary to get the grade they want. Only a few students ever took me up on that, and many in that class dropped the course failing.
The more annoying issue, and the point of this blog post, is how we have tragically redefined the concept of a “C” grade. Before the 1980s, everyone understood that an “A” grade meant exceptional, a “B” grade was above average and a “C” grade was average. Only a “D” grade was not good, because now it meant that your learning, your grasp of the material was below average. Charles Murray has been writing about this for over a decade; that we have lost our understanding of what a bell curve actually means.
In doing so, we have slowly redefined what a “C” means. The number of students who now believe that a “C” is a bad grade or a failing grade is staggering. Now, understand, I do realize that for parents, they want their child to do well. And, perhaps in the early grades, perhaps even through middle school, a “smart” person will make mostly high grades (A or B). By the time you have hit college, however, that idea easily falls apart. It is illogical to assume that a person would be exceptional in every and any type of course. Instead, the majority of students, especially in an intro course, will end up being average.
To lose the idea of “average” is to lose touch with what rigor means. As I wrote last week, the two students who really saddened me were both passing. They had invested about 10 weeks of their lives and hundreds of dollars into this course. Then, they merely threw it away. Sure, the student who is failing at least drops the course to avoid the “F”, deciding that the loss of money is apparently worth not dealing with an “F” on their transcript. But, the student who is passing is making a poor judgment call on leaving the class.
They appear to be saying “unless I can get an “A” or at worse a “B” in the class, I will quit trying and drop out.” Yet, if no one is average in the topic, then everyone gets an “A”, and yet that makes everyone average. The reality is that most of us are average at many things, and even below average in some areas. For myself, science was the topic that held little interest to me, and while I could get “good grades” in high school, once I was in college I was in trouble. I had to take two science courses, which I did reluctantly. In one I had an amazing professor who inspired me to put forth an extraordinary effort and I barely got a “B”–but trust me, that “B” was one of my proudest grades. The second course had an average professor who didn’t really seem to care about me, and as such, I put for my best average effort, which for me as a low “C” grade in which I had to do well on the final to keep that “C.” In other words, I am average, or more likely below average, in the topic of science.
You know what? That’s okay. I am not above average in everything, not even most things. Where I have my strengths, I am exceptional, but in other areas, my grade would be a “C” or worse.
If we hope to really turn the country around, we have to start to get a lot more honest in education. More students need an honest grade, which will mean many will be getting “C”s or even failing classes. More professors and high school teachers need to start raising the bar, bringing in more rigor (not more busy work) and high expectations. We need to tell students that a “C” is not failure, as long as they did their best effort. We need to do this in order to inform students that they must work diligently if they hope to move forward in life.
If we don’t do this, ultimately, we’ll find ourselves where everyone has passed college with a near-4.0 grade and yet no ability to think for themselves, to work hard at challenging issues, stay in the hard thing till it is finished or accept their best as reward enough.
May 3, 2012 at 6:01 am, by
Carl
George Barna has nailed it again. He actually has written two posts in one: first he demonstrates (again) how almost everyone who claims to be a Christian really has no idea what that means; secondly he demonstrates that to go deeper in God, we must allow ourselves to be broken.
On the first point, he says “My research suggests that millions of Americans “say the prayer” that they assume guarantees them eternal salvation. But the research also confirms that a large share of those people does not develop a real “relationship” with Christ, they have not really broken ranks with sin, and they are not truly living for God’s purposes.” This is a tragedy that has been the focus of my time as a Christian leader since the late 1980s. Barna goes on to point out that part of the problem is that the church is far too interested in placating people, making the Christian experience easy or happy. Many have forgotten that when Jesus said that he would make the burden light, he is still saying that we will take on his yoke and carry a burden. Barna argues that a sense of understanding the brokenness about our sin is critical, yet of course we don’t like that becasue it makes us uncomfortable.
But it is the second point where Barna really nails this point. Barna says that when a Christian experiences brokenness, like David or Moses, we come closer to God’s throne. He writes, “Most people never realize that brokenness is actually a gift from God that demonstrates His awesome and unyielding love. We typically examine the circumstances designed to guide us from a casual acquaintance to an intense and intimate lover of God and foolishly conclude that they are harmful to our well-being. In reality, they are God’s means of bringing us to our knees before Him, in full-on repentance, enabling us to see the truth of who we are, who He is, how we treat Him, and how compassionate He is.”
Wow! Go read the full post here, but before you go, think on this….the last time you had a rough go of it, maybe an unkind professor or a work colleague who “threw you under the bus,” what was your reaction? Having recently just gone through this with some people previously from my church saying some pretty harsh and hurtful things, I know my reaction is to lash out or to sulk at God for Him allowing such evil to happen to me. Barna, though, is right that we should “embrace brokenness and to trust God alone to bring you through it.”
May 1, 2012 at 6:20 am, by
Carl
Amazed yet by the increased speed of life, especially connected to technology?
One of my favorite blogs to frequent, Liz Strauss at Successful Blog has the right thought about finding focus. Molly, one of her main writers, says this:
How do you prioritize when everything’s a priority?
- Be quiet. Find somewhere where you can shut out all distractions and breathe for a couple minutes. When I was in radio, I used to get in the booth, shut the door, flip the ‘ON AIR’ switch and meditate for 15 minutes.
- Ask yourself: “What’s important today?”
- Apply a triage lens to Your List: What’s bleeding? What can wait? Record it in whichever way works for you: Outlook task list, Evernote, pen and paper, tickler file. Then follow up accordingly.
- Set up the pins and knock ‘em down. One. At. A. Time. Multitasking does not work
- Honor your system. Establish the foundational structure (of your business plan, of your social media presence et al). Then honor it. Make it a habit to honor your system and you’ll discover a paradox: structure provides fluidity.
- RELAX. Hold your shorts on, man. Unless you’re MacGyver, the fate of the free world does not rest in your hands. Besides, tense people can’t flex. Bring your breath to center and recalibrate when you feel as though you are going in circles.
- Celebrate your victories, no matter how small. Success begets success.
Couple of closing thoughts–she links to an Ars Technica article that is 5 years old about how multi-tasking doesn’t work. Trust me, there is more recent research that supports the claim. Stop lying to yourself that you really can do this. I watch my daughters try to work on homework, and ultimately, an activity that should take about an hour or two will typically take twice as long…and be not as proficient as it could be.
April 26, 2012 at 6:58 am, by
Carl
If you follow college football, you probably heard that the leaders of the top football programs were meeting to finally discuss making some changes to the infuriating BCS. From what we can tell now, sounds like they are merely making a tiny change from the current system to a “Final Four” type program. While I am glad they are finally moving towards some changes, a Final Four is really only a small step. Back in 2003, I wrote the following blog post that created a much deeper and efficient playoff that incorporated 16 teams, as well as all of the current Bowl games (or the current number of bowl games back then). Take a read and someone help forward this to the BCS people so maybe they’ll make an even better decision about change.
Bring on the Playoffs
Are we all fed up yet? Once again, the process of attempting to discover a National Champion has gone awry. For all the apologists, the BCS is just a “Better Crappy System.” “Better Crappy System.” Still the operative word is crappy. Ever since my Auburn Tigers were cheated in 1983 by the previous lame system that allowed a suspect Miami team to jump from #5 to #1 just because they beat the then #1 Cornhuskers, I’ve never quite figured out the problem here. I know you already know the obvious facts such as the other football divisions having a playoff system, the big money controlling things through the bowls, the supposed joke of an argument about too many games, et al. So, I’ll skip to the chase.
I am proposing a groundswell of argument in favor of a 16-team playoff system. And below, I will detail the system using this year’s teams for reference. Obviously, you start with a 16-team bracket. That means 4 weekends of games for the final two teams. Working backward from the championship game, let’s walk through it.
A Playoff System for 16 Teams
The championship bowl game, the two semi-final games and one of the “Elite 8” sites would come from our current BCS bowls—Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose. Those 4 bowls would rotate yearly so that each bowl continues to get the Championship Game once per 4 years. The previous year’s Championship site would rotate back to the Elite Eight site. To compensate for any perceived slight at not being a Championship or Semi-Final game, the Elite Eight games would be held at just 2 locations, thus ensuring that said bowl would receive adequate financial compensation by having two games on one day, or on a Saturday-Sunday format.
The other Elite Eight game would be the reward for the lower tier of current “End of year/January 1st bowls”—the Cotton, Peach, Outback, Gator and Capitol One. One of those bowls would rotate up to the Elite Eight weekend of bowls once every five years. The other 4 bowls would then take the premier Round one (Sweet Sixteen) games: the top 4 seeds would be the obvious choice, or you could allow them to pick to take advantage of regional choices they might pursue.
The final 4 Sweet Sixteen games would be decided by someone else. Honestly, who really watches those other 20 some odd games unless your team is there. Let the NCAA pick once and for all from a lottery, or perhaps go with the longest running bowls like the Liberty or Sun. In any case, they still get an incredible game.
So here is how the bracket from the 2003-2004 season would look:
Of course you can tell this was built off of the current BCS poll. That could easily change, but for sake of argument, that was the easiest path. The initial thing that could possibly rise as a complaint were those last 2 selections. Using the polls as a simple guide, there were 4 teams up for 2 slots—Washington State, Mississippi, Boise State, and Florida. For ease of decision, I ignored the BCS on the 15th slot (UF) due to 4 losses. I reluctantly left Boise State out due to strength of schedule, thus leaving me with Mississippi and Washington State.
The fact that some teams would still get left out is an argument against a playoff. Unlike NCAA basketball, football teams cannot play games in a back-to-back weekend formula. That negates adding too many levels. While my neighbors here in Florida and the fine folks of Boise State would cry “foul,” the fact that a #17 ranked team did not get in would not smack of hypocrisy the way that this year’s BCS (or any of the previous years) does. The fact is that every year there is some team in the Top 10 that everyone admits is “playing the best/hottest/toughest football right now.” That team is rarely a #14-20 team so if they get left out at that point, too bad. But the integrity of the system that gets that year’s top teams would be protected.
Arguments Against 16 Team Playoff
So, now what could possibly be the arguments against this system? There are only a few, so let’s work through them one at a time. First, and perhaps the biggest, is the change to our end of year football culture. We’ve had the bowls for decades now all happening on January 1st and we’d be asking the country to move past that. You know what–within 2 years, 3 max, it would happen. People would move on, enraptured by the incredible football over 4 weekends and the old bowl system would have gone the way of the dodo.
Second, “ a playoff asks teams to play too many games.” Poppycock. This year the top 24 teams of the AP poll ALL played 12 or more games. They are all going to play a bowl game. There is NO argument about players not being able to do it. Now, one HUGE presupposition for my position is this: that each Division 1 team is limited to only playing in 11 regular season games. I understand that such would hit the pocketbooks of the teams, but the overall TV and bowl payout for the playoff would offset that supposed loss of revenue. However, even if it did not, I stand firm that each team could do with one less game.
What about the playoff teams? Well, you are asking 8 teams to play only one extra game, which they do now already. You are asking 4 teams to play 2 extra games (13 total, again what most play already). You are asking 2 teams to play 3 games (14 total, still reasonable and less than some teams have played this year in their regular season). Finally, you are asking only 2 teams to play 4 extra games, to a total of 15 games). I do not propose eliminating the Conference Championship Games, so yes, the total games for top teams would go up 1 game with the conference championships which. Those games go a long way to helping decide the final rankings. In any case, the lower divisions do this already with little to no problems. These games could not interfere with college any more than they currently do.
Third problem would be the schedule. Yes, for the sake of tradition, I place the final game on January 1st. Thus, that demands playing football during December. Except for finals (which could be worked around if need be), I see no problem with this. In fact, yearly we watch our really “hot” team at the end of the year look really poor at the bowl due to 3-4 weeks of rust. Playing out the season would make for better football. But this schedule change would demand that the season shrink and some “open dates” go away. That is not as huge a deal as we think. Certainly having an open date helps injured players come back, but many teams don’t get to have a break. With the drop of games allowed to 11, you can start when we start already and still get finished before Thanksgiving, allowing for the Conference Championship games that weekend.
Fourth complaint– “with a playoff, the regular season games become meaningless.” Again, baloney! Each game would get bigger as the rankings processed. Don’t you think that Mississippi (in our example above) would love to have beaten LSU, thus escaping a tough first round game with Oklahoma? Sure they would! Even for the worse teams, they then get the fun position of playing spoiler by giving a team in the lower rankings a shove out with a big loss.
Fifth problem, what about the bowl tradition and the other teams that “deserve a reward.” Well, currently there are 28 bowl games letting 56 teams play one more game and all the economic reward that accompanies that game (for the teams and the region of the bowl game). In my system, you’d have 13 Championship bowls with 16 teams. We would allow the other 15 bowls not associated with the playoff to remain with the only exception (and this could be debatable) that they could not play on January 1. That gets 30 more teams, up to a total of 46 teams getting a bonus. I’d bet within 5 years that you’d see 5 more bowls pop up for those last remaining 10 teams.
However, let me suggest something else and I’m about to slam my own team, Auburn. Does a team with 5 losses deserve a “reward?” This year there are two 6-6 teams, one 7-6 and 11 other teams with 5 losses, all in bowl games. In basketball, those corresponding percentages would be (for a 30 game season), somewhere between 15-15 and 17-13. Again, I don’t know about you, but there aren’t too many .500 teams getting into March Madness and when those 17-13, 17-15, 19-16 teams get in, everyone complains because it eliminated a more deserving team with 20 wins. My point is that my Auburn Tigers and the other 14 teams with 5 or more losses should be happy to make it out of the season with a winning record and try to learn from it. They don’t “deserve” a bowl game. In my system, should they get one of those lesser bowls, well then good for them, but who really cares.
Well, there you go. This is an easy thing to imagine and not difficult to employ. If some are fearful that the loss of the lower bowls actually harms some town, then let them keep playing, just like the NIT in basketball, allowing those mediocre teams to still have a game. Actually, I think within a few years, few would care or watch. In a playoff system, you would have 13 great bowl sites with games that are critical and fun and exciting!
Share this with your friends. Send it on to others. Let’s get this going today!
