Nov 21, 2015 5 min read

Let the stupidity begin.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, maybe you’ve come to believe what I believe about college campuses – that more stupidity per square inch exists there than anywhere else on the planet.

There are plenty of examples but, since this is a sports column, I’ll stick to the amazingly stupid system for picking a college football champion.

Lots of people were excited when the NCAA went to a four-team playoff last season. The smart people at the institutions of higher learning figured out that four is more than two and agreed that that made their new system twice as good as the playoff that only included two teams.

It obviously never occurred to the smart people at the institutions that picking a champion from four teams voted into the tournament is just as stupid as picking one from two teams voted into the tournament.

And that’s why we’re in the stupid season.

Going into this weekend, two of the top four teams in the poll had one loss.

Alabama was No. 2 and Notre Dame was No. 4. Both were 9-1.

Iowa and Oklahoma State were 10-0 and on the outside looking in.

Based on how things have gone to this point, it appears that there will be few teams that will be victims of the stupidity by being voted out of a chance to play for a national championship.

And now we’ll be subjected to the “fun” of arguing about who deserves to play for the championship. We’ve been told for years by the people who opposed a football playoff that the polls are “fun” because they create arguments.

You know what would be fun for people who, you know, believe that championships should have nothing to do with voting?

A real playoff between conference championships.

Some conferences have championship games. Apparently, because enough people at some institutions of higher learning don’t think arguing is as much fun as watching two teams play.

The Big Ten, which has 14 teams, has a championship game.

The Big 12, which has 10 teams does not.

Why not have the Southeast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, (which actually has 12 teams) Atlantic Coast, American Athletic (Big East remnants) and Mountain West conferences determine a champion on the field and have a playoff?

Pick a wild card based on what happens on the field and there’s your eight-team playoff.

Notre Dame would have to join a conference or be left out.

So would BYU and Army.

The Sun Belt, Mid-America and Conference USA would be left out, but they’ve been left out for long time.

With a solution that simple, why would anyone take a champion chosen by voting seriously?

• Now that we’ve fixed college football, let’s move to the NHL. Scoring is as low as it’s been in 50 years and 50 years ago there were no Europeans and very few Americans playing.

And no curved sticks.

Shrinking the goalie pads would seem to be no-brainer, but my favorite idea – one that I’ve only heard recently – is to no longer allow a team playing shorthanded to ice the puck.

Why should the team that is penalized and playing a man short be rewarded by being allowed to ignore a very important rule?

Icing the puck often requires hard work and smart play so it’s not in the same league as, say, an intentional walk when it comes to bringing the game to a screeching halt, but eliminating it would make it a lot easier to score power-play goals.

Blocking shots, something the old time equipment and helmetless heads didn’t allow 50 years ago, has made it much more difficult for shooters to get the puck to the net and teams on the penalty-kill now just pack it in in front of the goalie and flop a lot.

And there are as many 6-2, 200-pound defenseman on every NHL team today as there were in the entire league 30 years ago.

Eliminating icing might compensate for those major differences..

I would add to that going back to prehistoric times and making every penalized player serve his time no matter how many goals the opposing team scores.

That would mean more power-play goals and it might also mean more even-strength goals because players would be much more wary about committing penalties, which might open up the ice.

• Speaking of scoring, would Sidney Crosby be doing more of it if he weren’t spending so much time chasing dumped pucks and digging them out of the corners and from along the boards?

How often does Crosby come over the blue line with speed? If I were playing against the Penguins, I’d be happy to see them dump the puck.

John Steigerwald writes a weekly sports column for the Observer-Reporter.com