A Modest Proposal For College Football

It's almost that time again. As the air starts to crispen ever-so-slightly, and students return to school, the other staple of autumn is fast approaching: college football! I know technically games have kicked off already. but as desperate as I am for the return of America's greatest sport, I refuse to acknowledge Nebraska losing to Illinois as the start of the season.

There's a magic about this time of year for a football fan like myself. One of the first pieces I wrote for this blog was about the power nostalgia holds in this season, and how those emotional pulls conspire to elicit such a strong positive sentiment about this sport in particular. And yet-- even a sport as steeped in tradition as college football is, is not immune to the two forces ever-present in every facet of American society: progress and capitalism. Those are the two drivers (and which you consider the more significant one probably depends on your level of cynicism) behind the biggest story from this offseason. Yes, even bigger than the return of fans to the stadiums across America, than the latest off-the-cuff social commentary from Dabo Swinney and ensuing Twitter backlash, somehow even more than the sudden push for an expansion of the college football playoff to 12 teams: a new wave of conference realignment. In July, Texas and Oklahoma sent shockwaves through the college sports landscape when they announced their desire to leave the Big 12 for the SEC. Mere days after this rumor was initially reported, the two rivals and flagship schools of their conference had officially notified the Big 12 of their intent to depart in 2024, and were unanimously welcomed to the SEC by the current member schools soon afterwards. Not only did this mark a radical shift in the power structure and geographical makeup of the existing Power 5 conferences, it spawned countless other rumors, theories, and proposals about the future of the various conferences and college football at large. Was the SEC going to keep adding all the major programs in an attempt to usurp the NCAA in influence? Were the likes of Clemson and Florida State next? Would the elites of the ACC and the Big Ten merge into their own super conference? Was the Big 12 likely dead? Was FBS football (at least as we have known it) dead?

These questions still don't have satisfactory answers. And by that I mean, the answer to each one as of now is No, but nobody can definitively say it will stay that way. The dust has cleared for now, and all that has come from this is the "Alliance" between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12, which at first glance appears to be nothing more than a toothless gentleman's agreement to, you know, not let the SEC have their way all the time! Yeah! That'll show 'em! So as we enter this college football season with the future of the sport possibly hanging in the balance, it got me wondering what the natural end result, inasmuch as there can be an "end" result, is.

A "Super League" Future?

Even if you don't follow soccer, if you pay any amount of attention to the world of sports, you will recall that this spring, an almighty uproar arose from Europe as plans for the European 'Super League' were unveiled. The premise of the Super League was that 20 of Europe's wealthiest (or, to hear them tell it, "most elite") clubs would no longer play in the esteemed Champions League and instead play in a closed league tournament between themselves every year. Unsurprisingly, the rejection of the most popular annual tournament in the World and in particular, the dismissal of promotion and relegation in favor of having only the same participants annually, was met with riotous derision and anger from supporters of all clubs, regardless of whether their team of choice was involved in this proposed league. The owners of nearly all the clubs were clearly caught off guard by just how fierce, effective and uniform the supporter protests would be, and in a rare win for everyday fans, backtracked and withdrew from the plan within days of its announced launch.

This failed experiment might seem an odd model for one of America's most beloved sports. But, given the stark disparity that already exists in college football-- i.e. over half of the FBS teams don't really have a legitimate shot at the postseason due to their lack of political capital and perceived weaker schedule quality --I can't help but wonder if the inevitable future is America's own approximation of this Super League. After all, you could evenly distribute the teams across the so-called Power 5 conferences into divisions of 8 as is, and those are really the only teams that find themselves capable of crashing the playoff party. What's more, the increasing professionalization of college football, with endorsement deals and free agency permitted now, and announced expansion to a 12-team playoff provide an easy segue to an NFL-style postseason. Specifically, a postseason with all division winners meeting a total of 4 wild card teams to make up the 12 teams in the field.

Before we can delve into the layout of college football's new reality, the NFL/Super League hybrid, there are two items to address. First off: the Notre Dame conundrum. While the sum of all Power 5 conference members falls into a neat 64, that leaves the Independent Notre Dame out. Though most of America would love to stick it to the Fighting Irish for all their years of thumbing their nose at the idea of joining a conference, there's no way a top-tier league exists without them. Love them or hate them, and you do either love them or hate them, Notre Dame IS college football. Their name, their history, their shockingly consistent hype and postseason futility both, and their exclusive television deals = lots of eyeballs = lots of money for the head honchos. So, rather than have an odd number of 65 teams included, the natural choice is to have Notre Dame supplant a current Power 5 conference team. For the sake of this article, I am going to make the difficult executive decision that the unlucky team is TCU. They were, after all, the only Power 5 team besides Utah to have only joined the big kids' table in the last decade, and not only has Utah been the more consistent performer at the top level, the Utes fill a geographic void, whereas TCU would typically only be, at best, the 3rd-best team in their own state.

However, all is not lost for the Horned Frogs! For, and this is the second item I wanted to address, in Commissioner Daniel's college football league, we avoid the critical mistake the Super League made and prevent this from being a closed league. Yes, college football would become the first American league to institute the century-old European tradition of promotion and relegation. The end of the regular season wouldn't just see a postseason battle for the trophy, it would see a postseason battle for survival, as the lowest-finishing team from each division would play the winners of the divisions from the league below (consisting of the current Group of Five teams). This system, by and large, keeps the powers that be happy, as almost all money-making, high-performing institutions would in most years have no relegation threat to fear, and would also lower the volume on those pesky voices from the Boise State and UCFs of the country who annually (and, don't be fooled by my tongue-in-cheek tone, deservedly) gripe about the lack of playoff access for their high-performing teams. If, using last season's 'best of the little guys' as an example, Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina want a shot at the big leagues, they can earn their spot in the Super League the following season by capping off their great seasons with a postseason win over a Kansas or a Vanderbilt. The chief argument against any sort of promotion and relegation in college football as is is the chaos it would create in the athletic conferences, who see the same teams across sports. But let's be honest, college football is its own business and entity, and in this incarnation we'd obviously be even further from the conference setup that is present in all other college sports.

The New Model In Action

A quick rundown of the features of College Football's Super League:

• 64 teams in the top division, split into 8 divisions across 2 conferences

• Every team plays an 11-game season - The breakdown would be as follows: i. 7 against all division members ii.. 1 rivalry inter-conference game (this is why most teams are in different conferences from their top rival, to ensure an annual cross-conference rivalry matchup) iii. 1 against a team from each of the other divisions in-conference, based on expected placement within the division in an attempt to create as balanced non-division schedule as possible (ex: Clemson would play a non-conference slate that consisted of 2 teams also a frontrunner in their division, and 2 teams likely to be at the bottom of their division)
  

• Postseason: the playoffs would emulate the NFL - 8 division champions, with 2 wild cards in each conference i. The division champions would be decided based on division record, then head-to-head, then overall record, then national ranking ii. There would still be a playoff committee, to not only create the rankings that might serve as the fourth tiebreaker for division champions, but also to select the 2 wild card teams who didn't win their division, and perhaps most importantly of all, determine the seedings in each conference - The top two seeded teams in each conference get a first-round bye, while the two wild cards are automatically seeded 5 and 6, regardless of record and ranking - The teams are reseeded after the first round of play to ensure highest-seeded is playing lowest-seeded - Higher seed hosts at their home stadium, although the conference finals and National Championship will maintain current format of being at neutral bowl sites
  

• As discussed above, the lowest-finishing team from each division enters the Promotion/Relegation playoffs against the 8 division winners from the league below
  

Here's how your College Football Super League might look for the 2021 Season:

With this particular divisional alignment, based on preseason rankings and media predictions, here's what the postseason would look like:

• AMERICAN: - Byes: (1) Alabama and (2) Clemson - Wild Card Round: (3) Notre Dame vs. (6) Miami, (4) Oregon vs. (5) Texas A&M - Relegation Playoffs: Duke, Nebraska, Baylor, Kansas - Conference Championship at the Orange Bowl: Alabama vs. Clemson
  

• NATIONAL: - Byes: (1) Oklahoma and (2) Ohio State - Wild Card Round: (3) Georgia vs. (6) Florida, (4) North Carolina vs. (5) Iowa State - Relegation Playoffs: Rutgers, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Oregon State - Conference Championship at the Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Ohio State

Curious what your favorite team's schedule might look like? Don't worry, we've covered that too! Click here to see the out-of-division opponents they would play in addition to the 7 other teams in their own division.