What Has Changed, and Why It Matters
Conference realignment has accelerated dramatically since 2021. Programs have moved between conferences primarily in pursuit of television revenue, resulting in conferences that no longer reflect geographic or cultural coherence. The Big Ten now includes programs from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The SEC and ACC have expanded well beyond their traditional footprints.
These shifts have had downstream effects on scheduling, travel, and fan engagement. Games that defined regional identities for generations have been discontinued or diminished as a result of conference restructuring.
Separately, the College Football Playoff has expanded from four to twelve teams. While broader access has merit, expansion reduces the stakes of the regular season. When a team with three losses can reach the playoff, the consequence of any individual regular-season loss is diminished.
There is currently no independent governing body for college football with authority over conference structure or scheduling. Decisions are made by conference commissioners who are accountable to their member institutions and broadcast partners, not to the sport as a whole.
Geographic Incoherence
Current conference alignments prioritize television markets over geography, resulting in schedules with significant travel burdens and matchups that lack historical context or regional meaning.
Diminished Regular Season Stakes
Playoff expansion has reduced the cost of regular-season losses. The singular pressure that made college football Saturdays unique — where a single defeat could end a season — has been partially eroded.
No Independent Oversight
No neutral body exists to evaluate structural decisions in terms of the sport's long-term health. Conference commissioners operate independently, with no mechanism for cross-conference coordination on matters of shared interest.
Group of Five Exclusion
The current playoff structure makes it effectively impossible for non-Power conference programs to compete for a national championship. This limits the sport's competitive breadth and leaves a significant portion of its programs without a meaningful postseason path.
Four Core Principles
The framework below is built around four organizing principles. Each structural decision follows from one or more of them.
Geography
Conferences should reflect genuine regional identity. Teams should compete primarily against programs with shared geography, history, and fan bases. This reduces unnecessary travel and reinforces the regional character of the sport.
Competitive Consequence
Every game should carry meaningful stakes. A tiered structure with promotion and relegation ensures that teams in all positions of the standings — not just playoff contenders — have something significant to play for throughout the season.
Independent Governance
Structural decisions affecting the sport should be made by a body that is independent of conference commissioners and broadcast partners — one elected by the institutions themselves, with eligibility rules that prevent conflicts of interest.
Inclusion
Group of Five programs represent a substantial portion of college football. The framework gives them a legitimate, self-contained path to a national championship rather than marginalizing them within a Power-conference-dominated bracket.
Four Conferences, Two Tiers Each
72 programs are organized into four geographically defined conferences. Each conference is divided into Tier A (9 teams) and Tier B (9 teams), creating a total of eight competitive divisions with distinct playoff paths and promotion/relegation mechanics between tiers.
- Clemson
- Florida State
- Miami
- Notre Dame
- Penn State
- Pitt
- Syracuse
- West Virginia
- Virginia Tech
- Boston College
- Cincinnati
- Duke
- Maryland
- North Carolina
- Rutgers
- Wake Forest
- UConn
- Virginia
- Colorado
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Minnesota
- Nebraska
- Ohio State
- Iowa State
- Kansas
- Kansas State
- Kentucky
- Louisville
- Missouri
- Northwestern
- Purdue
- Wisconsin
- Alabama
- Auburn
- Florida
- Georgia
- Georgia Tech
- LSU
- Ole Miss
- Tennessee
- Vanderbilt
- Arkansas
- Baylor
- Houston
- Miss. State
- NC State
- SMU
- TCU
- UCF
- South Carolina
- BYU
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Texas
- Texas A&M
- Texas Tech
- UCLA
- USC
- Washington
- Arizona
- Arizona State
- Boise State
- Cal
- Oklahoma State
- Oregon State
- Stanford
- Utah
- Washington State
The 12-Game Regular Season
Each team plays 12 regular-season games. The schedule is structured to balance conference play with broader exposure — to FCS programs, Group of Five opponents, and teams from the other tier within the same conference.
| # | Game Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | FCS Opponent | Standard non-conference opener; consistent with current practice |
| 1 | FBS Group of Five | Provides G5 programs with access to Power-level competition and revenue |
| 1 | Intersectional | Cross-conference game against a team from another of the four conferences |
| 1 | Cross-Tier Conference | One game against a team from the opposite tier within the same conference |
| 8 | Conference Games | Primary competitive schedule within tier and conference |
| 12 | Total |
Three Simultaneous Playoffs
Each level of the sport runs its own playoff at the end of the regular season. Tier A runs a 12-team bracket, Tier B runs a 4-team playoff seeded by its promotion games, and the Group of Five runs a 5-team bracket with each conference champion included. All three are integrated into the existing bowl system.
The promotion and relegation mechanic is the structural element most likely to restore meaning to the late regular season. When a team ranked seventh in its conference faces demotion, November games carry consequences regardless of playoff positioning.
Independent Oversight
The framework proposes a league-level governing body with authority over structural matters — conference composition, scheduling rules, playoff format, and promotion/relegation thresholds. This body would be elected by the 72 participating athletic departments but would operate independently of them once seated.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| League Commissioner | A single commissioner oversees all four conferences and has authority to enforce structural rules and resolve cross-conference disputes. |
| Governing Committee | A multi-member committee supports the commissioner, with rotating representation across conferences and tiers. |
| Eligibility Restriction | No sitting athletic director may serve on the committee. This is intended to prevent the conflicts of interest that have historically driven structural decisions toward institutional self-interest rather than sport-wide benefit. |
| Who May Serve | Former coaches, former players, legal and business professionals, and other public figures with relevant experience — provided they hold no active role in a member institution. |
| Election Mechanism | All 72 athletic departments vote. Terms are staggered to ensure continuity. Commissioner is subject to a confidence vote every four years. |
What This Framework Accomplishes
The proposal restores geographic coherence to conference structure, creates competitive stakes at every level of the standings through promotion and relegation, gives Group of Five programs a legitimate postseason path, and establishes an independent governing body capable of making decisions in the sport's long-term interest rather than in response to individual conference or broadcast pressures.
It does not require dismantling the bowl system, eliminating the current playoff format wholesale, or resolving the NIL and transfer portal questions that remain in flux. It is a structural framework — a starting point for a more rational organization of the sport.
The goal is a version of college football that remains recognizable to the fans who have followed it for decades, while creating the institutional conditions for it to survive the next several.