College Football Powers Need To End the Charade And Create Their New Identity

Let's just get this over with and stop playing around. Just create a new College Football System and leave everything else alone.

The SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 need to just get their power guys in one room and hammer out how they want their new entity to look. Just create this 60-ish school football league, figure out how the money will be distributed, and leave everything else alone.

What I mean is this: those four conferences need to figure out what schools they want to put into this system. Create an NFL-type league of 64 schools that will compete only against each other, have a 12 or 16 team playoff, sell all the rights you possibly can and split the money up somehow. Right now, those four leagues have 56 combined programs. Add in Notre Dame for a 57th team. BYU as 58th? Maybe let those Big 12 cast offs to bring it to 66 or 67. Quite possibly some programs like Kansas, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest or Rutgers get left behind and placed in a lower football division with the Mountain West, AAC, MAC, Conference USA and Sun Belt. The SEC and Big Ten take bigger cuts of the money than the ACC or Pac-12 with the possibly bonus shares going to the leagues that produce the playoff teams and champions.

They all get paid. The schools get paid. And we don't have to tear apart college basketball or the non-revenue sports to make this happen. We don't need these cross country conferences anymore just to make football money. So just create this Mega Conference and keep it separate from the rest of college athletics. 

ACC Needs to Aggressively Go After the Pac-12

 

The biggest sports news over the last week was Texas and Oklahoma informing the Big 12 that they're leaving and then formally asking for membership into the Southeastern Conference. 

That news in itself is groundbreaking. Texas is one of the biggest brands in college athletics while Oklahoma has been a steady face at or near the top of college football ... and both are joining the premiere conference that has won 11 of the last 15 football national championships. It will create a 16-team league with some of the best programs in the country all in one spot.

The ripple effect is what could happen to college athletics. Is this the beginning of a seismic shift where college football ... or college sports ... looks completely different than what we've known. We can all project what that will look like, but the wheels are in motion now and everyone is in game mode so they won't get left out.

I'm an ACC guy, and the ACC is in a tough position. The good news is that the league has a Grant of Rights deal that goes to 2036. The bad news is that it is a bad financial TV deal that will put the league at the bottom in terms of revenue and will be a reason schools may eventually look to leave. Other good news is that Notre Dame is tied to the league until the deal is up in 2036 ... and the bad news is that it isn't attractive to give up their independent status in football to join a league that's on edge.

So the ACC needs to do something. Adding West Virginia does nothing. Going after the Big 12 leftovers isn't really attractive to do and won't net much, financially or in regards to stability.  None of that would help woo Notre Dame in any way.

But raiding the Pac-12 could.

When the last two rounds of expansion hit, the ACC was an aggressor. They wanted Miami from the Big East, and ended up taking Virginia Tech and Boston College along with it. That created bad blood between the two leagues, which became even more strained when a decade ago the ACC took Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville and, yes, Notre Dame's non-football sports as well. In the middle of all that, the ACC took a hit as inaugural member Maryland bolted the ACC for the Big Ten. The ACC is the one of the four major conferences that got hit ... and also showed that they have the ability to be ruthless.

So go after the Pac-12. 

The Big Ten doesn't want to because they have a close working relationship with the league. The Pac-12, while stable, doesn't have the kind of options to bulk up its league as the SEC, Big Ten or ACC. So appeal to the Pac-12 powers now before someone else does.

See if you can pull USC and UCLA ... and Stanford and California ... and Oregon. Yes, that may sound ridiculous but we've entered the realm of outside the box thinking. For the ACC, it is only a matter of time before the SEC or Big Ten starts cozying up to Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina and Miami ... if they haven't already. For the Pac-12, it's only a matter of time before they're on the outside watching the SEC and Big Ten control everything.

The ACC has an attractive offer. The ACC, along with the SEC, is the only conference to have put a team in every College Football Playoff. The Pac-12 hasn't had a team in it since 2017 and hasn't won a game since Oregon won one in 2015. The ACC can say that they will form a 20-team league in pod form ... with four pods with five teams in each. Those five schools would live in a pod together and then venture out for national games against the other pods.

It gives the California schools and Oregon a pathway to recruit in the south and east coast ... and their games shown on TV all Saturday long all season long. It give the ACC the same thing, as the league would now be able to have content on all day ... including owning the late night audience. The ACC could imagine having a Oregon-Miami game at noon, a Clemson-North Carolina game at 3:30pm, Virginia Tech-Florida State at 7pm, and Stanford-USC at 10:30pm with other games sprinkled on other stations. That is attractive enough to open ESPN's pockets up a bit more. 

Oh, and adding five Pac-12 teams would only get the ACC to 19. Who's the 20th?

Notre Dame.

Bringing in USC and Stanford would be a draw for Notre Dame, and would house seven ACC games that the Irish already play during the season (currently, Notre Dame plays five ACC schools and play USC and Stanford every year). So how much different would it be for Notre Dame to play one or two more conference games (the ACC right now has an 8-game schedule, though a 9-game slate would be more appropriate in a 20-team league)? The ACC already has an open working relationship with Notre Dame and could still allow the Irish to keep most of their independent perks while still having them as a full member of the conference.

Notre Dame can still have their TV package with NBC (which is for home games), while the ACC can still offer ESPN or another bidder the Irish's road games. So ESPN would know that every other year, they'd get a Notre Dame-USC game.

It is a wild concept, but it might work. Here is how my pod proposal would work

NORTH: Boston College, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse
SOUTH: Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech
CENTRAL: Clemson, Duke, NC State, North Carolina, Wake Forest
PAC: Cal, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC

That keeps the historically great programs (Notre Dame, Clemson, USC, and Miami/Florida State) in their own pod. Keep a 9-game regular season schedule where you play the other four teams in your pod once, allow for any "historic rivalries" to continue ... like Notre Dame's with USC and Stanford, North Carolina-Virginia, Clemson-Georgia Tech, Miami-Boston College, etc. and then fill in the schedule accordingly. The pod system is only for scheduling purposes, as the ACC wants to ditch the division format altogether ... so have the top two teams play for the conference title. With the upcoming expanded playoff, the ACC could look to get two or three (or more) teams into the playoff this way. 

Again, this is a far-fetched idea ... but I can tell you right now that the powers that be in the ACC have thought about this. There will be growing pains and maybe concessions to be made, but if the ACC wants to have a seat at the New College Football League Presented By State Farm Alliance of MegaConferences, this is the road they need to look to go down. If not, the next decade will be the one where the ACC is looking like the current Big 12. 

What Will Happen To The Big 12?

The Big 12 could be in real trouble. Also, the teams who are currently in the Big 12 are in bigger trouble. 

The Big 12 seems like that it is nearing the end of the road. With Oklahoma and Texas gone, most of the power of the league leaves with it. Yes, there are nice programs, three Texas teams, the defending NCAA tournament champion and a blue blood basketball program ... but nothing that wows the TV guys into paying anyone more money to put them on their networks. I mean, who is the biggest name ... football wise ... left? TCU? Iowa State? West Virginia? Baylor? Probably Oklahoma State. 

The league may only exist for a few more years for financial reasons. If Oklahoma and Texas stick around until the Grant of Rights expires in four years, then the league's members would want to milk that for all they could. If those two bolt and have to pony up money back to the Big 12, those eight abandoned schools will want to still band together to cash in. Add to the fact that they would have to pay back money if they left and you'll likely get a couple more years of a tattered league.

Or this could look like the last time Texas left a conference. When they bolted the SWC for the Big 12 in the mid-1990s, the SWC tore apart as everyone ran for cover. This will eventually be what happens to the Big 12. At some point, everyone will have to look out for themselves and make tough decisions about their future. The Big 12 isn't going to purge the AAC for schools -- in fact the inverse may actually happen. Why would Cincinnati jump to a Big 12 that shunned them just a couple years ago and inherit a league that is standing on shaky ground? The AAC may be better suited to absorb several ... if not all ... the Big 12 schools.  Possibly the Pac-12 could look at Oklahoma State and the three Texas schools (TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech). Maybe the ACC does too, or even reconsiders West Virginia's pleas to join up. However, this is a time of huge moves and adding one or all the remaining eight Big 12 schools isn't a huge move. 

It was only a matter of time that the Big 12 folded. For the last decade, Texas and Oklahoma had been threatening to bolt even as the league was giving them more and more power and money. Now it's happening. 

Texas, Oklahoma To Likely Join SEC

 What would an SEC look like with Texas and Oklahoma in it?

If the SEC kept their current division format:

EAST: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt

WEST: Arkansas, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas, Texas A&M

As you can see, both Oklahoma and Texas would join the West division, Missouri would move from the East to the West, and both Alabama and Auburn would move from the West to the East. This works both with geography and it spreads the power around. The West division has been much more powerful than the East over the last decade, so moving Alabama and Auburn over makes for an interesting dynamic. 

Of course there has been a rumor of a pod system where four teams are placed in four pods for scheduling purposes. What might that look like?

A: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
B: Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
C: LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss
D: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M

It doesn't seem that perfect from a geography standpoint nor as a spread of power. For instance, do you think Arkansas wants to be in a group with Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M forever? Meanwhile, LSU is the only historically strong program in their group. Still, it allows for good scheduling opportunities that don't currently exist. You play the three pod teams once, then play two teams from each pod in a home and home. 

So let's look at Alabama using our pod system. They'd play Auburn, Tennessee and Vanderbilt every year. They in Year 1, they could play Florida, at Kentucky from Group A, Mississippi State and at Missouri from Group C, and Oklahoma and at Texas A&M from Group D.  In Year 2, it would be the same schedule, just switching the home and road teams. In Year 3, Alabama could play the three pod teams, then South Carolina, at Georgia, LSU, at Ole Miss, Texas and at Arkansas. Year 4 would alternate those locations.

Then every team in the SEC would get to host Alabama once every four years ... except for their fellow pod schools which hosts them every other season. Then imagine if you're Georgia, and then get to travel to a Texas school twice every four years.