WEEKLY WHINE

Hail to the reformers

Hi there. As you may or may not know, the collegiate American football season began on Thursday with 19 games in NCAA Division I-A, including one in which the University of Utah defeated the University of Michigan.

The NCAA made several rule changes for this year, including eight man referee crews at the discretion of the conferences. However, as usual, they did not respond to our proposed rule changes devised by the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED]. So, in the interest of helping you decide whether we were right and the NCAA was wrong, we will now show you what we proposed.

ELIMINATE TELEVISION TIMEOUTS

Collegiate American football games take too long. This is principally due to the television timeouts, of which there must be at least ten per half. The mere fact that they are called “television timeouts” is a clear admission that there is no competitive reason for them to exist. Therefore, the NCAA must eliminate them immediately. Broadcasters may still display commercials during their game coverage, but the referees must not wait for them to end. Play must continue straight through after kickoffs, turnovers, and quarter ends, whether the broadcaster is ready or not.

BAN SILLY KITS

Remember the good old days when only the University of Oregon had silly kits? Remember the good old days when the University of Notre Dame’s only alternate kit was the green jersey that they occasionally wore in bowl games? Remember the good old days when the University of California at Los Angeles never wore black under any circumstances?

Yes, those days were a long time ago. And although we cannot expect the NCAA to write and enforce a rule that simply states “no silly kits”, we can at least identify a few rules that will help reduce silly kit rates.

• Limit kit totals: We propose limiting teams to no more than three jerseys, three sets of pants, and two helmets. The jerseys would include one home [dark], one away [light], and one optional alternate [any officially registered team colour] that may be worn no more than twice per season, including bowl games.
• Limit kit colours: Each of the jerseys, pants, and helmets must have a single main colour that is one of the school’s officially registered colours. This would put a stop to wrong coloured kits such as UCLA’s aforementioned black for black’s sake kit.
• Legible names and numbers: This is not actually a new rule. We are simply reminding the NCAA that it has a rule requiring player names and numbers to be in a colour that contrasts with the jersey’s main colour.
• Names only on back: In recent years, teams have worn silly slogans in place of the player names on the back of their jerseys. For instance, for one game last season, Vanderbilt University wore uniforms with the words “ANCHOR DOWN” in place of the players’ names. The Southeastern Conference finally came to its senses and banned this approach, but the NCAA should never have allowed it in the first place.

BAN SILLY CONFERENCE NAMES

Several conferences have names that are completely unintelligible to the human mind. So as to make the world make sense again, the following conference name changes are to take effect immediately.

• The Big Ten now contains fourteen teams. It must therefore change its name to the Big Fourteen.
• The Big Twelve now contains ten teams. It must therefore change its name to the Big Ten.
• The Atlantic Coast Conference now contains two institutions that are not located in states on the Atlantic coast. It must therefore change its name to the Eastern Time Zone Conference.
• The Pacific Twelve Conference now contains four institutions that are not located in states on the Pacific coast. It must therefore change its name to the Eastern Time Zone Must Stay Up Late Conference.
• Conference USA is a word followed by a country. It must therefore change its name to Generic Conference Name A, although Medium Thirteen will also be permitted.
• The American Athletic Conference is a country followed by two words. It must therefore change its name to Generic Conference Name B, although Medium Twelve will also be permitted.

REPLACE THE COMPETITIVE STRUCTURE

There are many ways to select a champion that are more efficient than the current approach introduced with the College Football Playoff system. In fact, we here at GoobNet have already proposed two: the promotion and relegation approach proposed by the GoobNet Agency for Reintroducing Relegation to Recreational Game Hierarchies, as well as the Super Collegiate Oblong Ovoid Playoff that we first introduced ten years ago. Obviously, both of these methods would yield a consensus national champion. What is more, both would present a massive increase in the number of playoff games, which would trigger vast rivers of cash in which NCAA bigwigs may swim. Everybody wins!

As you can clearly see, any or all of these rule changes would improve collegiate American football. NCAA, please implement these changes immediately. Because we brought these rule changes to your attention, we expect a certain amount of gratitude when you implement them. This gratitude may take the form of vast rivers of cash in which Jhonny may swim. Everybody wins!