I have been one of the most vocal opponents of teams beginning their season with a creampuff Division 1-AA team or ACC team. I have always felt it was a cheap and easy way for teams to pad their schedules with minimal effort (I am looking at you SEC).
However after this past weekend of football, I am changing my tune.
The way that the college football landscape is constructed today, a team should absolutely start their season with an easy win.
While most TV talking heads lament all of these creampuffs and their impact on compelling match-ups early in the season what they really are lamenting are compelling games to drive high TV ratings. While I agree, in theory, that watching cross-sectional match-ups is much more compelling than every game being a 69-3 blowout, in reality, it really isn’t.
Think back to all of the games this past weekend that matched-up ranked teams. Were any of them actually enjoyable to watch? I watched just about every highly touted early season game and pretty much universally they all stunk.
They weren’t all as bad as that Boise State/Oregon stinkbomb Thursday (pre-punch of course), but they weren’t good. More importantly, they weren’t as good as they would have been if played in 2-3 weeks. How much better would the BYU/OU game have been in a couple weeks when the OU offensive line had learned how to not flinch early? How about the Okie State / UGA game with a couple weeks of experience for the UGA quarterback?
On the other hand. VT/Alabama would have been an absolute blow-out had Alabama had a couple weeks to get its mistakes out of its system.
These were the marquee match-ups of the week and they were miserable. The two most entertaining games I saw on Saturday were games that weren’t supposed to be close – OSU/Navy and LSU/Washington. Isn’t it more entertaining to see an underdog surprise a favorite who isn’t fully ready for the season than see two supposed heavyweights stumble and bumble through an ugly game?
Even if they are blow-outs, I would almost rather watch a team get its feet under it against lesser competition for a week, so that when we get these interesting match-ups these teams are playing at their best.
More important than the effect on fans though is the effect on the integrity of the season.
In the NFL, where a team can lose up to 8 games and still make the championship game, teams are allowed to play 4 pre-season games to get their players playing well together before it really matters.
So what sense does it make for teams (comprised of younger players) that can be eliminated from championship contention with a single loss (hello Sooners!) playing no practice games and instead jumping right into important games against equal competition?
How much would NFL teams howl if they were eliminated from Super Bowl contention by losing their first pre-season game?
Until college football allows for teams to play a pre-season game then I think they should schedule their own pre-season game.
If schools are clear about their intentions to their fans, would any fan complain? Imagine an AD coming out and saying: “Look, we recognize this may not be the most entertaining match-up for you as fans, but we believe that we will be a better team this season by having one game that allows the team to gel. Support us in this one game, and we will make the rest of the season more entertaining for you.” You don’t think any fan-base would be willing to sacrifice one game for a better season?
If everyone recognizes that the first week is sort of a pre-season, would anyone complain? Doesn’t it feel like a freebie week anyway, since there is no NFL?
This isn’t to excuse the pathetic non-conference schedules of some teams (for example starting the season with Charleston Southern and then Troy), but couldn’t we all agree that having a one-week warm-up would be a good thing?
And, no this isn’t solely a Favre-ian attempt to preemptively excuse a boring, ugly (and potentially disastrous) FSU/Miami game tonight.
That is just an added bonus.
