June 30, 2023 By: Mark Knudson

College Football: When does it become the Too Big Ten?

At what point during the never-ending saga of College Football re-alignment will we reach the point of saturation with the Big 10 (currently at 16 members and potentially climbing) and the Southeastern Conference (currently also at 16 and potentially expanding again) each of whom appear ready and willing to grow to 20 members plus?

Does anyone know when to say when anymore?

Forget the old fashioned thoughts on regionality and rivalries. Ancient history now. We’re closer to having an NFL-style two-conference/four division set up for a 40-team semi-professional league than we are to the days when the season ended with Nebraska playing Oklahoma on Thanksgiving every year.

Money has changed the fundamentals of the sport forever. And not for the better.

What appears ready to happen is this: Both the mega conferences reaching 20 teams (and maybe a few more) and then deciding to split off from the rest of College Football and forming a league of their own. They’ll get unheard of media rights money, set their roster sizes at 100+ so they can sign – and pay – all the best high school prospects, and have their own commissioner (Nick Saban maybe?) who won’t have to worry about any of the NCAA rules (if there are any left.) They’ll make up their own rules, and play a game that more closely resembles the NFL than anything that involves actual “student” athletes.

They’ll take over the College Football Playoff and the big bowl games for sure. Gotta make sure that every team – winning record or not – gets to play in a lucrative post season game of some sort. Participation trophies that come with a paycheck are just fine.

How this new league will incorporate the actual University’s is anyone’s guess. Will the players become employees of the institutions, simply representing the schools that employs them while not actually having to attend any classes or worry about earning a degree?

Probably.

Will the players – thrilled to get Name, Image and Likeness paydays and having the Transfer Portal to use at their whim – like the idea of becoming employees and having to pay taxes on scholarships and everything else like a grown up at 17 years old?

Careful what you wish for.

And the schools…proud academic institutions most of them…are they going to be okay with being mere billboards and having young men masquerading as “students?”

Once again…probably. A lot of universities have already sold their souls for huge paydays. Do they have a limit?

Said it before…but get ready for the Mutual of Omaha Cornhuskers facing off with the Ford Motors Wolverines. The AFLAC Tigers (the insurance company HQ is located much closer to Auburn than Alabama…sorry Coach Saban) traveling west to meet to Coors Brewing Buffaloes.

It’ll be like that.

One positive for fans is that we won’t be seeing any more Alabama v Mercer football games. Good for the fans, bad for Mercer and other non-mega conference schools that benefit from those nice payday games. No more epic bowl game “David v Goliath’ upsets like Boise State over Oklahoma. And some annual/semi-annual “rivalry” games like Colorado v Colorado State will go by the boards, too.

The underdogs won’t get the chance anymore. They’ll be left behind in the lower tier.

Will any of the schools/programs left out of the initial mega conferences, who will still continue to play actual “college” football, be able to earn a promotion at some point? Will the mega conferences decided to expand even further? (If they could make more money, then yes.) Could there be “relegation” for teams/program/franchises that underperform?

Now that would be interesting.

All this speculation and all these questions center on one thing: Does anyone involved in college sports know when to say when to all this? Will all these money grabs continue unabated? Will anyone with the Big Ten, SEC or even the Big 12 ever get to the point where they say, “we’re done expanding” and actually mean it?

Until then, the saga and the drama will continue. Unabated.