This item needs no further elaboration...or does it? I miss the late 1990's and early 2000's of football for a plethora of reasons and Miami being an almighty power in CFB and as a NFL factory is one of them. Miami-Florida State used to be required watching. Now, with Jimbo Fisher and Al Golden (two squares if I ever saw one) patrolling the sidelines instead of real personalities like Bobby Bowden and Howard Schnellenberger/Jimmy Johnson/Dennis Erickson/Butch Davis/Larry Coker, the rivarly has lost a lot of pizzazz. Maybe it's a product of the internet age, but there used to be real, authentic hatred between these teams that made this game must-watch TV.
Need I say anymore?
Nota Bene: I'd also add Tennessee, Nebraska, and Washington to this list- on the provision that Tennessee never wears a hideous jersey like they have since Philip Fulmer left. That orange was already an eyesore to begin with. Seriously, no more checkerboard patterns, PLEASE!
2. An end to horrible alternate uniforms.
I'm looking at you, Michigan. And you too, Maryland. I could go on, as there are plenty of examples of terrible ideas in college uniforms. I didn't even link to Indiana's chrome candy cane helmets. (I swear I didn't make that up.) This also includes teams wearing black jerseys who don't feature black as a school color. Nebraska is the lone exception, thanks to their "Blackshirts" tradition. Florida State? You aren't so lucky. You already had an elite jersey set. Why fix what isn't broken?
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| Florida State's 2014 alternate unis will be black. |
For the love of all that is holy and sacred in college football, please limit yourselves to one or two alternates. Miami having an orange or green home jersey is fine. UGA doing black or red is also acceptable. NC State wearing black is not. UNC wearing navy blue is not. Take a hint from the big boys- Ohio State, Okahoma, Alabama, Penn State, and USC are among an elite few teams in terms of on-field success and jersey stability. They've never changed their jerseys too much and for good reason. Sometimes less is more. I doubt recruits care about your 64, 356 uniform combinations that much.
3. Speaking of uniforms, let's have a retro jersey week (if you have them)
Sorry Alabama. Oregon of all teams actually did this and it was AMAZING.
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| THOSE HELMETS! |
4. Restore old rivalries.
Miami vs. Florida (you scared, Florida? #SEC #SEC #SEC)
Penn State vs. Pittsburgh
Texas vs. Arkansas (and A&M for that matter- figure it out, ladies)
West Virginia vs. Virginia Tech (criminally underrated in my opinion)
Oklahoma-Nebraska
I'd also like to add that I'd love to see teams add a late season non-conference game. This could replace a bad FCS team that the SEC teams like to schedule in their second-to-last games of the season. I still don't know why they do that and complain when people make fun of their scheduling. Some teams already do this for rivalry week at the end of the year (Georgia Tech vs. Georgia as an example), but imagine if Alabama took a trip to Maryland for a game with Navy instead of playing a winless FCS team like Western Carolina (which they actually did a few years ago). The late-season drama and intrigue would be off-the-charts insane.
5. Bring back the video game, but with a ton of improvements:
- Add all D-I teams with real stadiums and logos and jerseys, including FCS, DII, and DIII
- Allow for a more customizable setup to allow players to play a full DII and DIII season, complete with realistic postseasons. I.E. if you play a full season with Montana, you'd be eligible for the FCS playoffs. Same goes for a DII school like Saginaw Valley or a DIII school like Mount Union.
- Streamline the teambuilder process online so team customization would be made simpler for those who would edit the rosters and team designs as needed.
- In recruiting, make JUCOs a searchable trait so I don't have to flip through 2500+ different players.
- Bring back the academic probation and NCAA penalties that older installments had in dynasty mode. College kids screw up. Their coaches do too, and the NCAA punishes them (I'm not talking about Bobby Petrino or Joe Paterno stuff here, or even Pete Carroll for that matter). Still a common occurence today. Yeah, I know it got cut because the NCAA didn't like that in a game with its logo on it, but it added a tricky element to dynasty modes- bench your star RB because he skipped class or say, "screw it" and hope you don't get caught....
6. Restore the old conference alignments.
I know this will never happen because the money's too good and the playoffs guarantee that you need a good SOS to make the final cut (or so they say...). As a fan, it saddens me to see Louisville in the ACC instead of C-USA, Maryland in the Big Ten instead of the ACC, and the total dissolution of the Southwest, WAC, and Big East football conferences. The pursuit of the almighty dollar is going to kill the NCAA in the O'Bannon case and it's done a lot of damage to the sport's integrity from an alignment standpoint as well. Restoring the old conferences would restore older rivalries and breathe new life into current ones. For example, Oklahoma (Big 8/XII) would now play a non-conference game in October vs. Texas (Southwest) in the Cotton Bowl. West Virginia would play Virginia Tech every year as Big East rivals. Miami would go back to being an independent, play Notre Dame, FSU, and a couple of strong SEC teams each year, plus a few jaunts north to play teams like Boston College, Penn State, Ohio State, and BYU each year.
That pretty much covers all of my gripes. Sorry for over-emphasizing Miami- I recently watched that old ESPN: 30 for 30 about Miami and found myself in a wistful mood about the school. Probably doesn't hurt that I also recently watched their old "Hurricane game" vs. UCLA from 1998 when Edgerrin James and Najeh Davenport had approximately 28,738 rushing yards after contact and still barely beat the #2 UCLA Bruins in the Orange Bowl.
