The back room bargaining and the public deal making has already begun. Time to act now or get left on the sidelines.
The American Athletic Conference, born for football after the demise of the Big East (football) conference has fancied itself the sixth “Power Conference” in college athletics for a few seasons now. The on-field results don’t back up that claim, but nonetheless, it’s been great for marketing purposes. It also likely just cost them three members – Central Florida, Houston and Cincinnati – who recently jumped at the chance to join an actual Power Five conference, the Big 12. All that PR work appears to have elevated those three teams ahead of a team like Boise State – one time the darlings of the realignment derby – in the realignment pecking order. Strange, but true.
Now the AAC is left to talk about poaching programs from other leagues in order to maintain their self-glorifying “Power Six” status.
Wrong move.
No matter if the AAC was able to poach teams from other Group of Five conferences – and why would Boise State make a lateral move that would have a negative impact on their current TV deal? – it wouldn’t do anything to help the league become of the biggest boys. That ship has long since sailed.
If the AAC – and the other so-called “Group of Five” conferences want to lock in their place in the college football landscape, they need to join forces to do so. They still have a lot of value, even if they don’t get invited to the Crimson Tide Invitation every season. Time to flex a little muscle.
What the AAC should do – yesterday – is rekindle talks with the Mountain West conference about forming their own “alliance,” but in terms that are more definitive and marketable than the much talked about and very nebulous agreement recently agreed upon between the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten and the Pac 12. That handshake agreement contained no concrete plans for the future.
An AAC-MW alliance that is actually in writing and has an actual plan in place could do something unique and special. They could create their own version of a college football playoff.
Keep in mind that a) Americans consumers can’t get enough football, period. More games are always a positive, and b) broadcasting companies – be it over the air, cable, satellite or streaming services – can’t get enough live football/sports programming. Therefore, if a new scenario developed that could include a post season and some form of championship tourney, broadcast entities would be all over it.
We have long since proven that there’s no such thing as too much football. And with sports betting now an even bigger part of the landscape, the chance to have more football, professional or college (or somewhere in-between, like the current upper echelon of CFB) could be very lucrative for schools in the second tier who are currently relegated to afterthought status in most cases.
How could they do it? Pretty simple, actually. Two 12-team leagues that have six team divisions could very easily play a regular season that featured cross- division and non-conference games, and still culminate in a play-off.
For example – The 12 football playing members of the Mountain West could form the western portion of the alliance in two divisions, north and south. Boise State, Utah State, Fresno State, Wyoming, Colorado State and Nevada form the north, while San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Hawaii, New Mexico and Air Force form the south. Scheduling those league games will be easy.
The American will need to add teams from somewhere – independents (Hello, Army?) and perhaps a couple of current FCS teams could be in that mix, too – to form the 12 team eastern half. Also, keep in mind that not every one of the 69 teams that are currently in the Power Five fold will become part of the next step, that College Football Super Conference that’s on the horizon. So there might be some free agents to pluck, too.
Regardless of who gets added, scheduling won’t be difficult. Limit future scheduling to five every season divisional games, four cross divisional games (including the Commander and Chief series between Army, Navy and Air Force which could be highly lucrative) and three out of conference matchups with other FBS schools. (There will still be the Mid-America conference, the Sun Belt and Conference USA of course.) Then have the two top western and two top eastern division teams play for their conference titles, with those two winners advancing to the alliance championship game. Have those cleaver marketing people come up with a cool (sponsor) name for the title game and off you go.
No one is going to confuse this playoff with the big schools/pro minor league play-off, but that doesn’t mean it can’t and won’t be a big deal. It’s football played by college kids (who aren’t millionaires) with a championship on the line. This is money and a championship to be earned by schools and programs that aren’t getting much of either right now.
If the two leagues would build it, they would come…and they would watch.
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