The 32-Team College Football Playoff Extravaganza

We are one month away from the start of another college football season, and quite frankly I can't wait.  The first game is between my South Carolina Gamecocks and the UNC Tar Heels on August 29, which will kick off a year filled with the intriguing story lines of Johnny Football, Teddy Bridgewater, Alabama trying to win their 3rd straight national championship (and 4th in 5 years) and the yearly "Is this the year someone else besides the SEC wins a national championship?" - which, of course, the answer is NO.

But that's the kind of stuff that everyone else is writing about.  Not here.

This year is the last year (thankfully) of the BCS as we have known it since its inception in 1998 before major college football switches to the "plus-1" format, meaning there is a 4 team playoff to decide the national champion.

Which means there will be so many "what-if" scenarios discussed on television networks and various articles written about it, all of which will inevitable praise the "plus-1" system and express their anxiousness awaiting its arrival.  It will fix college football!

And then there will be people writing and discussing how an 8-team playoff will be better than a 4-team playoff because it would allow for a true champion to emerge and not rely as much on the rankings - but a 16-team playoff would be allowing way too many teams in, because you still want to preserve the BCS' shoddy defense of "it makes every game in the regular season matter!"

FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision - formerly known as Division 1-A or as you probably know it, just regular college football) football is broken.  We know this, which is why the playoff formatting is coming into place.  But it won't fix it.

The way to make college football the best it can be, for everyone involved with the sport - players, fans, schools, conferences, coaches, sponsors, the NCAA - is to have a 32-team playoff. College basketball style.

NBA Free Agency Breakdown - Where Should the Stars Go?

This is the worst time of the year to be a sports fan - we go from having the NBA and NHL playoffs on every night to only having midseason baseball to tune in to.  Nothing against baseball, but there are much more exciting things than watching game 75 of a team's 162 game schedule.  Seinfeld reruns, anyone?

I realize this is somewhat turning into a NBA blog, but this is really the only thing of note that's going on right now (and basketball is my expertise).  I could rave about how Chris Davis hits 800 homers every game or how Josh Hamilton is sucking or how the Pirates have the best record in baseball and they only win 63% of their games.  But that all is gonna change in the next 2 weeks anyway.

So here we are, the first day of NBA free agency.  The next few days will be littered with reports on who's offering what to whom and so on and so on.  I'm here to tell you where the top NBA free agents should go and where they'll have the best chance to be successful.  If they end up somewhere else, that's on them - and I'll be here to write about it after.

*Note: Official decisions can't be made and contracts can't be signed til July 10*

1) Chris Paul

Captain Waffle can never make up his mind

He's gonna go back to the Clippers.  They've offered him a 5-year/$107 million deal to play on a contender, have one of the best coaches in the game, and essentially have partial control on anything that franchise does.  Plus, he loves LA.  He's not going anywhere (I just included him so Dwight Howard aka Captain Waffle wouldn't be number 1).

2) Dwight Howard

Ideally, D12 would end up in Houston.  Jeremy Lin, James Harden, Chandler Parsons, Omer Asik, and Dwight form a starting line-up that would be lethal offensively and respectable defensively under coach Kevin McHale.  They would turn into instant title contenders, and he wouldn't have all the pressure and expectations he had in Lakerland.  And there's the history of Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming to help lure him.  A win-win for all involved.

But we all now how much Dwight loves to flip-flop more than summertime and not make decisions, and then make terrible ones when he does.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him in Dallas where everything is flashy and have Mark Cuban constantly coddling him.  Hopefully, he ends up a Rocket.