College Football

One of my pet peeves is the idea that Premier-League style "X up, X down" annual promotion could ever work in CFB. Even with the portal, that's just not how rosters full of 18-23 year olds (plus Stetson Bennett) work. The kind of lower division team that makes a splash probably has a lot of seniors, and often see a dropoff the next year. On the other side of the coin, many down years come from rebuilding teams that perform better the next year. So congratulations; you've responded to concerns about competitive balance by making it worse.

Give me rolling performance Pro-Rel that takes broader health of the program into account (the way it's SUPPOSED to work in Mexican pro soccer, but... yeah), and we can at least start to talk. Of course, in college you have the unique issue of, y'know, EVERY OTHER SPORT. I suppose that just means that administratively it will still be one conference, just with annual(?) realignment of divisions and payouts.

It would be an interesting hook for a broadcaster, and maybe a way for Wazzu and the Beavs to sell their new friends on unequal revenue sharing, but I don't see this one happening, at least not yet. Now, if it DOES, and if it works, you might suddenly see Michigan, Georgia, et al raising their eyebrows at a potential way to financially drop their dead weight without completely killing those intercollegiate relationships.

My issue with relegation is thatit just doesn't work on the 4-5 year cycle college sports is supposed to work on. Some schools would sustain it, sure, but most the others bounce around a bit class to class.

I wish the NFL would step in and just declare the NCAA a development league, and move on. Let the branding stay with the schools or whatever, still allow the athletes to attend school. But making it a requirement in an environment where it's increasingly hard to manage both school and playing along with the (let's be honest) sham education being provided at times is stupid as fuck. Idk a better system, because I don't think it should be like a HS player draft, and people going to school for the education while also being able to play would get shafted by that. But maybe like a "league designation" or something where the players are tagged by a franchise as a developmental player and given a stipend and some access to player advocates or something, both to show mutual interest in a continued career and to help drive home the point that you aren't guaranteed to make it. Maybe take school seriously.

That's also just me rambling about shit above my pay grade though.

Very intriguing idea. But yeah, not feasible. If you're the Pac-2 you've got nothing to lose. But if you're the MWC, do you look at the PAC -- who has a history of going against the CFB grain (e.g. setting up a PAC-12 Network unaffiliated with traditional media partners, putting their HQ in downtown San Francisco, pursuing a streaming-heavy media deal...) only to fail in epically catastrophic ways -- and think, "I need to hitch my wagon to that"?

“We have to think differently,” said one Mountain West athletic director who wished to remain anonymous. “We’re always trying to fit things in a box and we are always late to the party. How do we get in front of this?”

I'm curious who that was. It's got to be the AD of either Boise, CSU, Fresno, or SDSU.

The article also supposes North Dakota State and South Dakota State could join the system for depth, but do they even want to move up? They definitely could compete, but they seem comfortable with where they're at. This system does need bodies to work, though. I would say add UTEP and UTSA (and if they don't want to come, Tulsa, Texas State, Sam Houston, and even New Mexico State could suffice in a pinch).