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College Football is getting overloaded with Bowl games.

The NCAA has a whopping 40 bowl games, ranging from the Celebration Bowl to the Sugar Bowl that starts Dec. 20 and concludes with the national championship game next Monday.

My family and friends will be the first to tell anyone who would listen that I’m a football junkie. I enjoy attending the A-day game and watch countless NFL preseason games during the spring and summer to get ready for the grind of The Selma Times-Journal’s annual football preview magazine.

I love football, but I believe there are too bowl games that exist.

Here’s my solution to reduce some of these postseason contests:   1. Expand the College Football Playoff to eight teams and involve all the so-called New Year’s Six Bowls: Orange, Cotton, Fiesta, Sugar, Peach and Rose. The games can be played the weekend before Christmas, semifinals Christmas weekend and finals the first Monday in January. The Bowl Committee can schedule the six major bowls for the quarterfinals, semifinals and national title games.

2. Move up the national title game a week earlier from the first week of January, not the second week. Having the national finals a week before the next holiday, Martin Luther King Day, is too long.

For those wondering, I also complained when Alabama played this late in January. The middle of January should be focused on the NFL playoffs, not college football.

3. Eliminate some of the bowl games. It seems, to me, that every city in America has a bowl game. Yankee Stadium is built for Major League Baseball, not college football.

I’d make the Citrus, Outback, Gator, Holiday Bowls for Conference-USA, Sun Belt, Mountain West Conference, American Athletic Conference, Big East champions and the military programs: Army, Navy and Air Force.

The Liberty, Music City, Independence, Sun, Hawaii, Camelia, Celebation, Las Vegas, Texas and Belk Bowls would also make my cut. I’d also put another bowl in the state of California. That’s 20 bowls, more manageable.

4. Make a tougher bowl requirement. I believe seven wins should be required for teams to earn a bowl bid. I don’t like rewarding 6-6 teams with a bowl trip.  It also irritates me having 5-7 teams occasionally reach the postseason because of their excellent Academic Progress Rate (APR) report.

NFL teams rarely have 8-8 teams in the postseason, unless a division is lowsy. The NFC East Division came close with the Philadelphia finishing 9-7 to capture the division crown.

I know expanding the college football playoffs won’t happen anytime soon, but the bowl system needs tweaking. And that starts with reducing bowl games.