This is the way I view the situation in general -- there are essentially a couple groups of schools these days, one group that has universities with resources to compete for national titles on a fairly regular basis, as well as one that includes schools whose athletic teams should focus on winning conference championships and bowl games, and attaining postseason tournament berths. I earned my bachelor's degree from UT-Austin and my master's degree from Texas State. I expect UT-Austin to win a team national title (men's or women's) in some sport each school year, whereas I feel like Texas State should realistically be competing for conference titles, bowl victories, and spots in postseason tournaments. Texas State can still hang conference championship banners from the rafters, and I think it's certainly something to be proud of. I believe North Texas has won three bowl games in its history, so perhaps UNT should be angling for winning bowl games in three consecutive seasons or making the NCAA tournament three straight years. I mean, what's wrong with that?
It will take a new generation if fans to get excited about the NIL/Portal age of college football. Most players are now mercenaries, playing to earn a bigger paycheck for the next season. I miss having our players being our players forever. Monday Night Football should just forget about announcing where players attended college. Many are going to have 4 or 5 different schools before their done playing college ball.
I'll give you some other names that are scared to death of that reality--everyone in the Big 12, everyone else in the ACC besides UNC, UVa, VT, FSU, Clemson, and Miami.
No, if basketball actually can and does help, Duke, Kansas, and Arizona will probably be included, since they're also AAU members for academics, too.
There will be some serious names left behind. Could you imagine a scenario where the top whatever for football was this list of 32 schools: Penn State, Virginia, Va Tech, UNC, Clemson, FSU, Miami, Florida, Georgia, Bama, Auburn, Tennessee, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU, Texas, A&M, OU, Mizzou, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon
The left behinds would be a ridiculous list of names we would die to be included with in a conference/division setup.
My guess has always been 48-54 teams, which would give you 6 regional conferences of 8-9 teams. And cover all of the states that the NCAA and networks know they'll need for legal purposes.
Yes, I can think of a few that need kicked out of the Top League, or whatever it will be called, if we are talking about Power. Most of these middling programs bring markets, or academics, more than substance in Athletics.
Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Illinois, Miss St, and Rutgers to start.
We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Please review our full Privacy Policy before using our site.