The Best College Football Realignment Plan Ever
Relegation. Promotion. Rivalries. Mystery. Intrigue. Get it all here.
With all the bluster and political hand-wringing that’s framing this era of college football, wouldn’t it be great if we could come up with a realignment solution that preserves old rivalries, encourages new ones and fixes the money problem, the non-AQ problem and the geographic problem all at the same time?
Wait no longer. I have devised a solution that will make conference-jumping and the threat of “breaking away” a thing of the past. It’s radical. It’s ridiculous. And it’s just crazy enough to work. You ready?
Let’s make College Football like European Football. Let’s create a top-tier premier league, with a collection of feeder leagues below it, and then leagues below them, and so on. And let’s bring stateside the great chaotic beauty that is promotion and relegation. Here’s how it works.
1. A group of top-tier teams will face off against each other each year for the right to play for the national championship, in college football’s Premier League (you can call it whatever you want, I’m just calling it this for clarity’s sake).
2. 14 teams. Each team plays each other once. Top 2 teams play in the National Championship. Rotating venue just like the Super Bowl and current College Football Playoff.
3. Head-to-head record breaks a two-way tie to determine who gets a slot in the title game. 3-way ties and up based on records against each other and/or aggregate point differential between each other.
4. They can negotiate their own TV rights. They’ll make oodles of cash. They can pay players a fair wage. There will be a legit national champion every year.
Based on traditionally big-time programs and revenue reports from 2000–2013, I’ve come up with your 14-team breakaway league. Here they are:
Premier League
Alabama
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
LSU
Michigan
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Oregon
Penn State
Texas
USC
Now. You might be thinking to yourself, “but what about the other guys? Don’t they deserve to play for something as well?” You betcha.
That’s why the bottom two teams in this league every year will be relegated. Yes, I said RELEGATED. To their regionally appropriate feeder super-conference. The last place team gets replaced by the winner of said regionally appropriate conference championship game (more on that in a moment) and the second-to-last place team gets replaced by the winner of the promotional championship.
Here are your four feeder conferences:
Eastern Conference
Northeast Division
Boston College
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
West Virginia
Atlantic Division
Duke
Louisville
Maryland
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Virginia
Wake Forest
Southern Conference
Southeastern Division
Clemson
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)
Mississippi
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Virginia Tech
Mid-South Division
Arkansas
Baylor
Kentucky
SMU
TCU
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Central Conference
Midwest Division
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan State
Minnesota
Northwestern
Purdue
Wisconsin
Great Plains Division
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Oklahoma State
Texas A&M
Western Conference
Mountain Division
Arizona
Arizona State
Boise State
BYU
Colorado
Texas Tech
UNLV
Utah
Pacific Division
California
Hawaii
Oregon State
Stanford
UCLA
Washington
Washington State
You play every team in your division once, and that leaves room for scheduling other games against whomever you desire at this level of play. Division winners get a spot in 8-team promotional tournament. They’ll still run polls and you can even keep the committee for seeding purposes. Hell, we’ll even keep the BOWLS around, since they’re just exhibition cash grabs anyway, and teams that don’t make the promo tourney can be selected for them.
Here’s how promotion works.
The Orange / Fiesta / Rose / Sugar bowls become four quarter-final games played on January 1 between the winners of each division, seeded by formula or poll. The winners reach the semifinals, and the winners of those reach the championship, which will determine who rises into premier league.
The real kicker? The last place team in each division will be replaced by regionally appropriate teams who’ve moved up from your lower-tier Division I-A schools, and this system can cascade down to Division III if they want it to (I didn’t feel like listing all the teams and conferences, but you get the jist of it, right?)
The super-conferences can sign their own TV rights deals, just like the SEC and Big Ten and Pac-12 do now. Everybody makes money. Everybody has something to play for. The bowls remain in tact. We develop a true playoff system and a legitimate national champion. Teams that feel slighted can move up the ladder and play for something more meaningful as they move up in rank. The regular season matters, even for teams at the bottom.
What’s not to love?
