The College Football Super League — A return to sanity?!?!

Michigan running back Blake Corum scores against future Big Ten rival Washington in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in Houston. Photo Courtesy of the Seattle Times.

Back in 2020, I wrote about returning to conference alignment sanity. Since then, television networks have taken a blowtorch to any semblance of sanity in conference realignment, following the Texas/Oklahoma departure to the SEC, and the subsequent collapse of the Pac 12. Leagues have been decimated in the name of television revenue and brand notoriety, at the expense of student athletes and fans. Sanity, in even the slightest form, is now the furthest thing from reality.

Until last week…

Reports surfaced last week that a group of consultants were hired to develop a proposal that practically burned the entire college landscape to the ground as we knew it. Components included one league of 70 teams, with geographic divisions, and players being paid as employees. Relegation of mid-major (Group of Five) schools was also a component to allow for merit-based admittance into the power league. For the first time in years, a sane and decent idea came across the world of conference realignment news, albeit, even if only speculative. It only took the threat of a lawsuit for sanity to prevail… who’d have thought.

Here were the divisional alignments they came up with:

Here's a breakdown of the proposed divisions for the "Super League" that has been floating around. https://t.co/ISdbpnPUqv pic.twitter.com/9yXeAAnv6a
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) April 16, 2024

Admittedly, a bit was left to be desired for me with this alignment, but it makes more sense than Cal playing Boston College for an ACC Title in Charlotte, so bravo, Mr. Consultant Man.

How would I have aligned these leagues?

All of this dreaming about geographic rivalries mattering again really got me excited, dreaming of a world where student athletes didn’t have to fly from Piscataway to Los Angeles for a conference volleyball match beginning at 11:00pm EST. (sorry for the snark, its been a long three years in the conference realignment space)

Here are my proposed divisions, based upon their seven-division “power” league. The eighth “Group of Five” league would be static, so I left it out of this illustration.

To add a bit of variety, I also developed a scenario of six 12-team divisions:

Will it ever happen? I have no idea. It’d work out so much better for athletes, competing regionally again. Fans might actually matter again too, and after all, they are the soul of college athletics. I’m not going to hold my breath however, until the era of television revenue dictating all starts to show its cracks.