Scrapping the College Football Recruiting Process and Starting Over

Taking a look at what a socialist slant on college recruiting would look like.

Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide won another National Championship this past week and now that the dust has settled, just what did we learn about the 2015 college football season? Well – Alabama is still Alabama, the SEC is still the greatest college football conference in the country and if you believe Fox Sports Radio’s Colin Cowherd, the country is tired, bored and fed up with Alabama and the SEC.

ESPN’s ratings for the National Championship were way off the water mark this year, despite the game being a fantastic finish to the 2015 season and Cowherd explains it’s because people have become bored, disinterested and are just flat tired of the SEC. You can hear his entire take on it below.

.@ColinCowherd: The #NationalChampionship rating shows the country is tired of Alabama’s dominance. #HerdHere https://t.co/u2izH5evJr

"— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 12, 2016"

Based on the numbers I would say Cowherd is probably right and people are bored and tired and anytime a fan from another conference or someone in sports media can take a shot at the SEC, they take a shot.

But – what if we could change it all and start over and make things better for everyone? What if there was a new system that leveled the playing field for all 128 Division One College Football Teams and took the power out of the hands of the SEC and Alabama?

Since we are in an election year in 2016 and our country is at a cross roads of sorts – let’s just scrap the entire college football recruiting process as we know it and start over in the name of Socialism.

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Many people around the country feel we should share everything now days anyway. From money, to healthcare to housing and more there’s an ideology out there that we all need a piece of the pie and hey that’s your prerogative.

But what if we had a system where all 128 teams in college football shared the fruits of recruiting?

Per 247sports.com in 2015 there were 35- five star football players, 306 four star players, 1,761 three star players and over 2,000 two star players. That’s over 4,100 football players ready to move on from high school to college.

Just a few years ago the NCAA capped signing classes in football recruiting to 25 players which makes this an easy fix. That means if you do the math, there are 3,125 scholarships available every year among the 128 Division One football programs and enough players to go around.

But how do you distribute the players evenly among the 128? It’s really simple and we will start with the five star players first.

The number of five star players could vary from year to year so we will use 2015 as our example; with 35 five stars from a year ago. The NCAA would do a lottery every year, much like the NBA Draft – placing 128 ping-pong balls in a hopper. The 35 teams pulled from the hopper are the 35 teams that can actively recruit those five star players that are available and each team can only sign ONE five star player.

There were 306 four star players a year ago, but to make this easy – a composite recruiting ranking of all sites would be used and we would expect the services to tighten up their evaluation process and cut that number back to 256 four stars, to make it fair and even. Every team can recruit four star players, but can only sign TWO.

There were 1,761 three star players last year, but we round that number up to 1,792 so every team gets 14 three star players, but only 14.

Finally you had over 2,000 two-star athletes last year so there are plenty to go around. The teams that got a five star player in the lottery would be able to sign eight two stars, while those that didn’t get the five star luxury in that given year could sign nine two stars.

The breakout each year would be as follows in the new Socialist approach to college football recruiting.

Rankings	Lottery Winners	Non Lottery Winners
Five Stars	1	0
Four Stars	2	2
Three Stars	14	14
Two Stars	8	9

Total	25	25

One of the hot topics in college football has been for several years now about paying players and creating a stipend. Also how universities outside the Power Five have basically no shot to compete with the elites because of lack of funds or facilities or exposure.

This new recruiting criteria totally levels the playing field for all 128 teams and after about five years you wouldn’t know Alabama from Bethune Cookman or USC from Eastern Michigan. But – this would give everyone an opportunity to possibly play for a national title. Coaches would become even bigger commodities because you would have to have the best and brightest minds due to the talent being equal.

Finally, it would give teams like UNC Charlotte who went 2-10 this past year or North Texas an opportunity to finally have a realistic chance at success and maybe even a big pay day in a New Year’s Six Bowl game.

In the fairness of sports and equality this makes perfect since and in today’s climate where we see people wanting free education, free healthcare and more – isn’t it time to level the playing field in college football? Haven’t we seen enough of Alabama or Ohio State and isn’t it someone else’s turn.

Absolutely not its not – you can push the buttons on change in multiple facets of society, but if you start jacking with the process in college football you would have a college football revolution of sorts.

It’s one thing to push buttons on societal issues, but you go to fooling with the process and power brokers of college football and you will have crossed the line.

College football is a religion in some states and while in theory this fits the model some want to portray to society – if you tried this with college football it would be a disaster for all 128 teams, the television networks and the fans. You think the ratings were bad for Alabama – Clemson. Let ESPN televise Charlotte verses New Mexico State in the National Championship and watch the ratings plummet.

Change isn’t always the answer and sometimes ideas need to remain just that, ideas. People may be tired of Alabama and the SEC, but college football is better now than it has ever been.

If you want to change it, get out and get to work and advise your conferences and universities to do the same. It’s the old fashion American way.

Something to chew on as we trudge through 2016.