The Power Five Desperately Needs to Break Away from the NCAA

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Jul 22, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Executive director of the college football playoff Bill Hancock speaks to the media during the Big 12 Media Day at the Omni Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Week 2 of the 2014 college football season was weak. Real weak. It’s weak every year. Aside from laughing at the Big Ten it was a snooze fest. Hey, I’m glad to watch football after wanting to watch it so bad all summer but there has to be a better way. I think succeeding from the NCAA and creating a higher division of football is the answer.

What Mississippi State fans witnessed on Saturday vs. UAB was atrocious. I don’t mean the extreme heat that caused several to be carried out on stretchers – but that is a factor. Like Coach mentioned in his Sunday Morning QB, Mullen treated the game like an NFL preseason exhibition.

Is that really what fans are paying to see? A glorified scrimmage? I’ve been critical of fans leaving early in the past, especially the students, but I had no problem with anyone leaving early on Saturday. Why sit in the hot sun to watch non-competitive football. Or, in MSU’s case against UAB, watch Mullen treat the game like a practice.

There were a lot of folks on social media who communicated with us that they are upset about trying to take a family to a college football game and it cost so much, and the product on the field was not worth watching. These “rent-a-wins” as Bent Bulldawg put it, have SEC fans across the landscape feeling pretty meh when they show up on the schedule. If the most passionate fans in the country are bored then it’s pretty bad.

So obviously my solution is to break away from the NCAA. And in a perfect world, here’s how it would all work out…

This is a uniformed example that would be very hard to achieve, but some type of creation along these lines would be excellent. I’d like to see a commissioner-type like the NFL has make it happen. It would be great.

Four 18-team conferences:

  1. ACC (East)
  2. SEC (South)
  3. Big Ten (North)
  4. Pac 18 (West)

This would dissolve the Big 12 (I gave them the picture at the top as a memorial), and I’m allowing for eight teams who aren’t in the power five to join one of these conferences. Notre Dame would be one of them, so seven more “little guys” can jump in.

-Each conference has two 9-team divisions.

-Each team plays every team in their division totaling 8 conference games.

-Each team plays three non-conference games, one vs. every other conference.

-The 12th game is reserved for rivalries, i.e. Florida vs. Florida State, Notre Dame vs. USC etc.

I would make the first four weeks of the season really exciting by making them strictly devoted to the non-conference games. It would be a real test to see which is the best conference as the games would be pre-determined based on your finish the previous season. Matchups would include Pac 18 #4 team vs. SEC #4 team. Big Ten #2 team vs. ACC #2 team and so on. Where you finish the previous year determines who you play in the non-conference….kind of like the NFL does.

Then you play the conference slate. If you win your division you play whoever won the other division in your conference. If you win that you advance to the four team playoff….which is all the conference winners. Seeding is based on which conference had the best record in the non-conference matchups, and the location of the semi-final is a prime bowl game closest higher seed’s geography.

Effectively this would be an 8-team playoff.

Gone would be the crappy matchups. All killer, no filler. A fantastic 12-game schedule. It would be awesome.