Reinventing College Football – Redux

I rarely do this, but I would like you to follow this link and read one of my rants from January 9^th, 2017.  When you finish, I’ll be ready to expand on that idea today.

Nine years ago, I did not think that reorganizing college football so extensively was in the realm of the possible; now in 2026, one of the provisions of the “Save College Football Act” awaiting a vote in the US Senate is to prevent today’s conferences from breaking up because the top teams want to create a college football “Super League”.

Unlike 2017 when there were exactly 128 schools in Division 1-A football, there have been additions there.  This year there are 138 Division 1-A teams and that makes the math tricky so let me start by telling you that there will not be mathematical symmetry here and there will need to be some juggling and force-fitting of teams  into divisions to make this work.

I want to take the “Top 64 college football teams” and put them in the newly established College Football Champions League.  I want to take the remaining 74 teams that are playing Division 1-A football and organize them into the College Football Aspirants League.  Please note that I am trying to be kind and gentle with my labeling here; back in 2017, I called the first level categorization the Big Boys and the Little Boys.

Focus first on the Champions League.  Divide those 64 teams into 8 Divisions of 8 teams each.  The schedule for any team would follow a scripted pattern; 7 games against their Division opponents and 4 games against one-half of one other Division; the out-or-division games would rotate from year to year but all 11 games for all 64 teams in the Champions League would be against other teams in the Champions League; there are no “bunny games”.

The mavens who love the idea of an expanded CFP can use this scheduling chart to pick a field of 16 teams:

• Selection Method #1:  The first place and second place teams in each of the 8 Divisions are in the CFP.  The Committee will simply need to seed those teams and get out of the way.
• Selection Method #2:  The 8 Division winners are automatically in, and the Committee will then rank and seed the best 8 teams to fill out the CFP field on whatever basis the Committee might concoct.

            I prefer Selection Method #2 ever so slightly because it is easy for me to imagine that the third-place finisher in Division #1 might be significantly stronger than some of the other second place finishers in Divisions #2-8.  But I can live with either way …

But wait there’s more …  And there is a very contentious element here.

For the Aspirants League there is only room for 72 teams and there are 74 current teams that should get a seat at the table here.  There is no kind and gentle solution here; I know it is draconian, but two schools are going to be dropped down to Division 1-AA.  However, that decision will certainly be challenged in court; so, the real winner there is “Billable Hours”.

With 72 teams in the Aspirants League, there will be 9 Divisions of 8 teams each.  The scheduling there would be the same as in the Champions League; there are no “bunny games” and there are no games outside the commonly perceived level of competency.  There could be an Aspirants League playoff too and the games could fill up some of the minor Bowl Games.  However, the important thing for the Aspirants League is to identify its Top 8 teams because they will get promoted to the Champions League while 8 Champions League teams get demoted/relegated.

Here is how I would do the promotion/relegation:

• For relegation, the 8 teams that finish last in their Division in the Champions League get “sent down”.  There will need to be tie-breaker rules established ahead of time because there could well be identical records for two teams at the bottom of any Division.
• For promotion, the 8 teams that finish first in their Divisions get to “move up” – – but only if they elect to do so.  If a team is content to stay in the Aspirants League, then it can certainly do so and there would need to be a selection process for a team or teams that did not finish first in their Division to “move up”.

Promotion to the Champions League is potentially a curse and a blessing.  The blessing is that there will be more money coming in to the Athletic Department based on shared revenues for media deals with the Champions League.  The curse is that promotion may be ephemeral and there may be demotion one year hence; so, is that additional revenue worth the disruption.  For some schools the answer will surely be “yes”, but I would not want to mandate it as the only answer; promotion should be an invitation and not a requirement.

And now for the icing on the cake …  What to do with the teams that finish at the bottom of their Divisions in the Aspirants League?  Remember that two schools were “kicked out” of Division 1-A football to get the numbers right for the Aspirants League; those two schools would certainly want back in.

In addition, there may be other schools in Division 1-AA who might want to “graduate” and try their hand at a higher level of competition.  At the start of every season, there would be a time for schools outside Division 1-A to declare their intention/willingness to “move up” and here is how that would play out:

• If there are exactly 9 outside teams declaring for promotion to the Aspirants League, then those 9 teams would simply replace the 9 teams that finished last in their Division.
• If more than 9 teams declare, a Committee would have to decide which 9 are most deserving.  I would suggest that “surplus teams” have a playoff for those open slots, but others might prefer a simple Committee ruling.
• If fewer than 9 teams declare then fewer than 9 teams from the Aspirants League need demotion.  In this scenario, a version of my longstanding mythical SHOE Tournament would work.  Let’s say only 5 teams declare for promotion.  There are 8 last-place finishers.  A Committee would decide that two of those last place finishers will certainly go down but the other six teams would draw lots and play an elimination game where the loser goes down and the winner stays in the Aspirants League.

Meanwhile, at the top of the Champions League there will always be at least a couple of big-time games every week for TV presentations.  Focus on teams in the lower levels of the Divisions will increase because of the relegation provisions; the same goes for plenty of Aspirants League games because of promotion potential and relegation to Division 1-AA potential.

And somehow, all this increased focus on College Football is to be blunted by legislation pending in the US Senate.  Don’t ask why; just recognize this is the work of the US Congress – the place where good ideas go to die.  In my mind the only real question is this:

• Should we implement this in 2027 or in 2028?

Finally, I feel the need to close today with this from President Calvin Coolidge:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………