A FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL
- John Sullivan
- Oct 8
- 12 min read
I find it interesting that many sports fans often voice an opinion about change. We clamor for new ideas and new approaches but when a new opinion or new idea comes to light, the first reaction is often; “that’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard”. Why is that? Likely because that idea doesn’t quite fit what we were looking for to improve or advantage the team we live and die with each week.
How accepting to change is the average person, who knows. Talking about change is easy, but implementing change is difficult, especially if it does not improve the perceived position an individual was looking for.
College football has changed over the past years; we now have a twelve team playoff system to define a National Champion, we have college players being paid large amounts of money through the Name Image and Likeness (NIL) program and we have a system identified as the Transfer Portal that allows players to jump from team to team with little structure or oversight.
Presenting my “One Opinion” on the future of college football. Introducing the College Football Premier League (CFPL).
REALIGNMENT-RESTRUCTURE
The first college football seismic tremor occurred in 2011 when the BIG10 reached into the BIG 12 and convinced the University of Nebraska to join their conference, and at the same time the PAC 12 convinced the University of Colorado to move their alignment west. Immediate aftershock from those moves occurred the next year, when both the University of Missouri and Texas A&M University accepted invitations to join the SEC. This was, at the time, an unbelievable raid on the BIG 12. During those two years they lost four teams and a lot of relevance. Their existence was under significant pressure, and college football was experiencing the beginning of a major transformation.
By the summer of 2025 the Power 5 conferences were now the Power 4 conferences as the PAC 12 basically disintegrated. College football conferences have become conglomeration of schools spread across the United States with little or no relevance to geographies they represented for many years. Today the Southeast Conference remains closest to their early alignment as they remain, for the most part, in the Southeast region of the U.S.
I my one opinion the first major step toward the future of college football is a major realignment of the competitive structure. I would recommend the following:
1. Elimination of all the current conferences and move to a regional structure. Eight regions consisting of eight teams in each region with 64 teams in total. The new College Football Premier League (CFPL) as, depicted in Exhibit 1, would no longer play any teams outside the Premier League. Many of the long standing rivalry games would remain intact and some old rivalries would be reborn on an annual basis. The early scrimmage games
with smaller less competitive schools would no longer exist.
a. Under this structure a team would play 12 games as they do today. They would play the 7 teams in their region each year, with their 5 remaining games scheduled in one of the other Premier regions.
b. To add history to this realignment I recommend naming each of the regions after one of colleges legendary coaches.
i. James region; Don James 178 wins
ii. Pinkel region; Gary Pinkel 191 wins
iii. Hayes region; Woody Hayes 238 wins
iv. Warner region; Pop Warner 319 wins
v. Bowden region; Bobby Bowden 357 wins
vi. Bryant region; Bear Bryant 323 wins
vii. Royal region; Darrell Royal 184 wins
viii. Osborne region; Tom Osborne 255 wins
2. Under this proposed alignment the National Championship would be determined with a 24 team playoff system. Certainly, it could stay with the current 12 team playoff, however, I think most would agree that within a few months the clamoring for 16 or 24 teams would be on the rise. In my opinion 24 teams follow a long tradition of focusing on the top 25 teams in college football, so why not give the top performing 24 teams a shot at the title. The 24 teams would consist of the 8 regional winners and 16 wild card teams. My recommendation for the wild card teams would simply be the next best 16 team’s records with a defined tie breaker system. Additionally, under this structure the 8 regional winners would have a first round playoff bye. This structure has some similarity to the NFL; see Exhibit 2. In the NFL 14 of 32 teams make the playoffs, representing 44 percent of the league. Here 24 of the 64 teams would make the playoffs representing 37 percent of the league. There would no longer be any Conference Championship games as the conferences would no longer exist.
The winners in the wild card round will be seeded such that the highest seeded regional winner will play the lowest seeded wild card winner.
The winners in the wild card round will be seeded such that the highest seeded regional winner will play the lowest seeded wild card winner.
3. I believe the wild card round and the round of 16 should be played on the highest-seeded teams home field, and then the quarter and semi-finals could be incorporated into the bowl locations. The Championship game would continue in a prime time stand-alone location.
Of course, a few difficult decisions will have to me made. The Power Four Conferences consist of 68 teams. Plus, you have the remanence of the PAC 12, Oregon State and Washington State who were left in no man’s land. Who do you eliminate from the Premier Series? I simply looked at schools winning percentage from 2014 to 2024 with a focus on conference games. Using that approach the following teams were removed from consideration for the Premier League. Over that 10 year period the schools with the lowest winning percentages are; Vanderbilt (SEC 16.9% win rate), Rutgers (BIG10 20.6% win rate), Maryland (BIG10 29.2% win rate), Syracuse (ACC 32.2% win rate), Boston College (ACC 38.9% win rate), and Wake Forest (ACC 35.6% win rate). Talking about change is easy, implementing change is very hard.
No doubt before realignment ever works politics will raise its ugly head. Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and University Presidents from the eliminated schools will yell like hell. Conference leadership will have 100 reasons why this change will never work. Why, because change is only easy if you get what you want. Compromise will have to play an integral role to make this or some other new framework implementable.
GOVERNANCE
Restructuring the current college football landscape will be difficult but it may be the easiest task that has to be implemented. What follows, governance, NIL (pay for play), and the transfer portal will be a challenge to achieve consensus. Implementing change is hard!
In my one opinion I do not see any role for the NCAA in the CFPL. I believe that a completely new governance structure will have to be formed and built.
There are likely many approaches to this and both egos and political power grabs will get in the way. My one opinion approach would be.
1. Appoint a commissioner for the league. This model would follow the NFL’s governance model. Unlike the NFL though the CFPL does not have owners to guide leadership in this instance. However, I would recommend appointing a board to oversee and govern the organization.
a. Where can you find a commissioner? Good question, I would reach out again to the NFL. Look for someone in the commissioner’s office who has worked closely with him who understands the game and the importance of rules enforcement, integrity of the game, television contracts, and owner (college) conduct. There is no outcry to change any of the basic operating rules of college football, but to implement a new structure there will be a need to put in place a governance system that must deal with many issues that are new to a historically successful program. In my one opinion the NCAA has run its course, and it is time for a new governance structure focused just on upper levels of college football.
b. Where would the governance board come from. They must come from the colleges themselves. I would recommend one high level college administrator (President, Athletic Director, etc.) that has strong ties to the football program and the college administrative leadership. Each of the eight regions College Presidents would agree on one regional representative for the governance board. These appointments would have some timeframe associated with them, possibly two to three years and then a different college representative would be chosen for the next term. These should also be staggered terms so that the entire governance board would not turn over in any one year.
c. Finally, then the governance board would structure into several committees that focus on player payments, transfers, rules, TV contracts, etc.
Governance will be hard because many of the current conference commissioners will see a diminished power base. The question for those commissioners will be can they accept a new role, in some cases swallow their ego and work to improve the system. Implementation is hard!
NIL – PAY FOR PLAY
Name image and likeness (NIL) is a nice moniker to get money to the players in college football. But let’s call it what it really should be called; pay for play. For years fans, players, others, debated why young college players should be paid if they played football and generated large amounts of income for their university. Sure, it was argued that they were getting a free education through the scholarship programs, but that did not seem like nearly enough money. So, as we all know many aggressive alumni found ways to funnel money under the table and the NCAA spent enormous amounts of time trying to police the system and punish violators. Those days now seem like a hundred years ago.
In my opinion the NIL decision opened the door for a multitude of clicks bait and social media misinformation being written or posted in the college football domain. There are some crazy maybe outrageous stories that exist in the media and social media, but let’s look at some of the stats from Opendorse’s latest annual report.
1. Beginning in 2025-2026 season power four teams will be allowed to have 105 players on their rosters, meaning we will have approximately 6,720 players spread across 64 teams proposed here. Opendorse’s reported data 2024-2025 indicates that:
a. Only three tenths of one percent (20 players) received over $1,000,000.
b. Only 40 players received between $999,000 and $500,000
c. Only 611 players received between $400,000 and $100,000
d. Only 497 players received between $99,000 and $50,000
e. Only 1,082 players received between $49,000 and $10,000
f. The remaining players received below $10,000
Fortunately, a great deal of the current chaos in the NIL environment will be cleared up with the “House vs NCAA” settlement that was reached recently. The settlement agreement defines a NIL revenue sharing CAP established at $20.5 million beginning in the 2025-2026 athletic year.
1. Simply, this means that schools will be able to use up to $20.5 millions of their athletic revenue to pay players on their college teams. The $20.5 million will be the maximum money to be distributed over all athletic programs. It is expected that most and maybe all power four conferences will take the option to enter this new agreement, and they will allocate somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of that CAP to their football program not just football.
2. Additionally, individual players will still be able to enter their own name, image, and likeness agreements. However, these agreements will be very closely monitored to make sure they are not simply a pay for performance arrangement but represent tangible reportable marketing/representation opportunities.
3. The agreement also calls for a new independent enforcement agency, the “College Sports Commission” which is established to oversee compliance of revenue sharing, new roster limits, and third party NIL payments. This group might be the nucleus for the governing body discussed earlier but for certain it must be linked closely to the Governing Board.
I would not be surprised to see the new NIL approach spur many colleges hiring some level of branding specialist to work with their elite players to land corporate endorsement contracts allowing them to spread more of the revenue sharing money across a broader spectrum of players.
Certainly, this settlement has put a large level of regulation around the pay for play in college football and will help to eliminate the wild west chaos that has existed. It should balance the recruiting field across the entire Premier League landscape.
PLAYER MOVEMENT
Finally, under a new college football framework one opinion believes that there will need to be additional adjustments and rules changes relating to player transfers.
The first transfer portal opened in October 2018. In its opening stage a player was allowed to enter their desire to transfer into the portal and wait for interest to appear. In the first stages of the portal if a player was recruited and decided to transfer, they were required to sit out the next competitive year before playing again.
In 2021 the one year of ineligibility rule was amended for some sports including division one football, such that a player with academic standing and a first time transfer could play immediately. If the player was in the portal for a second transfer, they were still required to sit out one year before playing again.
By 2024 the rule was amended again and all requirements to sit out a year were removed. A player was allowed to enter the portal as many times as they wanted and could play immediately the next competitive year.
Under a new framework I believe that there will need to be some additional structure incorporated into the player movement process. In my opinion I would make the following changes:
1. Limit the transfer opportunity to no more than two transfers during a player’s eligibility.
2. Do not allow back to back transfer years.
3. If the player has received revenue sharing money of $250,000 or more, enters the portal and is offered a higher revenue share say $400,000 his current school is allowed the opportunity to match that offer before the transfer.
4. Make the portal available as follows:
a. Once a year after the National Championship Game has concluded
b. If the current coach is fired or departs, the portal will open for that school’s players for 40 days; opening either 15 days after the coach leaves the school or immediately once a new coach is announced, whichever occurs first.
Allowing a transfer process that has flexibility, is transparent, and allows a player the ability to control his desire and potential career is a good thing. However, the process needs to be tightened with a defined framework to assure that both the player and the college institution are not disadvantaged.
A NEW FRAMEWORK
I am not sure there is anything more fun and exciting than attending your favorite college football game. The noise, the tension, and the joy of watching your team compete is exhilarating.
In presenting a framework for the future of college football my intent was to lose none of those attributes. I believe the proposed structure changes presented here only strengthen those attributes. It sustains or reconnects decade old rivalries, it gets rid of the crazy conference layouts stretched coast to coast that we see today, and it builds on strengthening the ability to pay players and provide them freedom to move to another team if they believe that is in their best interest.
This is a potential framework; there is no expectation of total adoption but a beginning to make something that is the fabric of Saturdays in the fall and early winter even better over the years. I challenge the college administrators, the athletic directors, the coaches, and of course the politicians to put their egos in their pocket and push forward. My first thought when I was contemplating this article was that restructuring would be the easiest new implementation but, as Lee Corso would say “not so fast my friend”. After more thought I am now convinced it will be the hardest. Why, POLITICS, STATUS, SELF PRESERVATION, and INDIVIDUALS LOSING POWER. The conferences, their commissioners, and the related MONEY will be one massive wall to knock down.
Add ideas, make changes, compromise. Make one of Americas pastimes better. Do not lose the fact that these are young students who must also adhere to academic standards and learn how to be successful in the real world ahead of them. Some will go on to make football their career in the NFL, but that will be a small percentage. It has been estimated that the 223 players drafted in 2025 by the NFL from the power four conferences represented 1.5 to 1.7 percent of total college football players.
Let’s not try make college football the young NFL, but let’s develop a framework that allows for talented young players to continue to grow their skills and thrill their millions of fans and alumni across the country. For those elite players let’s provide a framework that allows them to continue to grow talents and learn how to manage their future careers in the NFL. Since the first college football game on November 6, 1869, played between Rutgers and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) academics has and must always be an integral part of college football. If you want to play you must make the grades, if you want to transfer you must make the grades. Education and athletics are a winning combination for our young student athletes no matter where they go after their college football experience.
Framework development is easy; implementing a new dynamic college football league will be challenge, but it is attainable.