[Gary Dillard]

A few scattered thoughts here:

1) Suppose you expanded the points system for additional qualifying - something like major points and minor points. Say 200 teams qualify for spots with major points - something similar to the existing qualifying. The remaining spots would be given to the top 100 minor point winners - giving different points for all the regional awards, past year's history, etc.

2) Along with that (or separate from it) - for teams that go to multiple regionals, they only get to use their best regional, or an average of all of them, or an average but drop the lowest.

3) Suppose we had a parallel national event where all the rest of the teams got to come and compete with each other on a lower scale. Sort of like the NIT is to the NCAA basketball championship - very few teams turn down the invitation even though they're not in the running for the national championship. They use it to build experience for future years. I think the experience of a large national event is worth it for all the teams to get excited about. Ideally it's held in conjunction with the national championship - even if it's a smaller pit and one field, they get to be involved. They get to hear Dean and Woody and join the community.