College Football’s ‘Ultimate Fix’ (Part 2)

The second step in my college football ‘Ultimate Fix’ addresses the problem of division imbalances and conference schedules. Here’s what I propose.

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You may have read one of the articles published in the last few years about why conferences should scrap divisions and adopt a POD system (Permanent Set of Games). One argument in favor of the proposal is that conferences have outgrown a divisional format. How so? Some teams in opposite divisions don’t play frequently.

Currently, we have a pervasive problem: one division always seems to be stronger than the other. Consider the SEC, where the Western Division has dominated over the past decade, winning 90% of the matchups. The same pattern is found in the Big Ten: the Eastern Division is undefeated since the divisional system was established in 2014. There’s more. In the ACC, the Atlantic Division has won the last nine conference championship games. It’s the same in the PAC-12, too. Out West, the PAC-12 North has beaten South rivals seven out of the last eight years.

And it’s why the Big 12–typically viewed as the Power 5 conference that can’t do much of anything right–has it right in this case, at least. Since 2017, the top two teams have played for the conference crown, and the average margin of victory is about 12 points.

But to make a POD system work, every P5 conference will have to go to a nine-game conference schedule. With fourteen teams in the revamped P5 conferences (per my proposal in Part 1)–and no divisions–nine conference games are needed to ‘separate’ teams and help determine the two best teams.

Since there won’t be divisions, teams will need to adopt a five-team conference POD.

If your head is spinning and you need to see an example of how it would work, let’s look at how it would apply in the case of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

–Annual conference opponents–Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole’ Miss, and Tennessee.
–Play in Years 1 and 2, Years 5 and 6, and so on–Arkansas, Texas A&M, Missouri, and South Carolina
–Play in Years 3 and 4, Years 7 and 8, and so on–Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt.

Because the cycle repeats every four years, several current divisional opponents won’t play annually. BUT the advantage is that ALL conference teams will play each other more frequently. While Alabama will not play Texas A&M and Arkansas every year, they would play Florida and Georgia (along with Texas A&M and Arkansas) twice every four years. What’s more, the POD system preserves/protects cross-divisional rivalries. In the SEC, that includes the likes of Georgia-Auburn, LSU-Florida, and Arkansas-Missouri.

With that, a three-part system seems right–if the system is followed by all P5 conferences and schools.

First, one game will be scheduled against a team from another P5 conference. That happens, for example, if Ohio State and USC play. This first step is made easier by the fact that some states have teams participating in different conferences. Texas-Texas A&M is one example. Iowa-Iowa State is another. Clemson-South Carolina is a third.

Second, one non-conference game will be played annually against a ‘Group of 5’ school. It’s a way for the P5 to acknowledge and support the Group of 5 and, not insignificantly, help them out financially. Again, in-state locations and rivalries help make this a reality. Consider TCU-SMU and Utah-Utah State.

Third, the final non-conference game each year can be played ‘as chosen.‘ The wild card game can serve multiple purposes. For Notre Dame, it could be to maintain its current non-conference schedule–USC as its cross-P5 opponent, the Navy as its Group of 5 foe, and Stanford ‘as chosen.’ For others, it could be used to reinstate rivalries that have been lost through previous realignments. For West Virginia, it could mean playing one or more teams that the Mountaineers used to play regularly, including (as an example) Pitt or Penn State (cross-P5 opponent) and Syracuse (‘as chosen’). The ‘as chosen’ also helps P5 schools reach out to schools with a relationship/history/peer connection. Examples could include in-state games, such as Michigan State-Central Michigan, and intersectional battles, like Duke-Northwestern.

Without divisions, there is a possibility of tiebreakers having to come into play to determine which teams will play for conference championships. The first tiebreaker should be head-to-head matchups, of course. But if teams didn’t play each other during the regular season, then the College Football Playoff rankings should be the next tiebreaker. That means scheduling strong non-conference teams should be considered. Who you play may be just the thing that enables one team (and not another) to play for a conference crown.

What do I think is best about my ‘Ultimate Fix’ Plan? That’s an easy question to answer: everything is equal and balanced across all P5 Conferences. That’s not happening today, and–in my humble opinion–it’s hurting college football.