One man’s suggestion for realignment in the FBS ranks …
Gary Beck
Updated 01/12/2021 8:45 PM
By Gary Beck
(Editor’s note: Beck is a Corvallis native who played both football and baseball at Oregon State in the 1970s. He was a safety in football and a slugging third baseman in baseball, leading the Northern Division with a .381 average in league games as a junior. He coached football for 29 years, including two as running backs coach at OSU (2006 and ’07) and 23 as a high school head coach. He coached Corvallis High to the state championship game three times, winning titles in 1979 and ’83. Beck currently lives in Marysville, Wash., and is an astute observer of college athletics.)
I’m not satisfied with the haphazard way the FBS conferences are set up, nor their schedules.
There needs to be some uniformity in order to level the playing field for all the schools in terms of qualifying for championships and bowl eligibility.
I’m offering a realignment proposal that would accomplish that along with re-creating a semblance of geographic structure to the various conferences.
I realize this proposal will be difficult to accept due to historical league alignment. It is presented to eliminate the need for a selection committee with human bias and allow for the playoff participants to be decided on the field of play. A byproduct is lesser travel costs and increased interest in sectional contests.
The new alignment will consist of eight 12-school leagues, with the winner of each league advancing to an eight-team playoff leading to the national championship.
The details:
• Each school plays a round-robin schedule and a 13-game regular-season slate. That will mean 11 conference games and two non-league games.
• One non-league game will open the season during the last weekend of August. The second non-league game will come the fourth weekend of October.
• Each team will have one bye. Four leagues will have a bye the second week of October and the other four leagues will have a bye the third week of October. This prevents teams from having an advantage of having a bye week prior to playing a team that doesn’t.
• The eight leagues will be comprised of teams from the current Pac-12, Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12, Mid-American, Sun Belt and USA conferences. The remaining FBS schools (34) could add two schools and have four leagues of nine teams apiece in a new division higher than the current FCS. Those schools could play eight league and four non-league games, then stage their own eight-team national playoffs. No conference championship games will be played since every school plays each other during the regular season.
• League champions are determined by record against league competition. Two-way ties would be broken by head-to-head results. Three-way ties would be broken by best record against the other two teams.
• The six bowl games currently used to rotate College Football Playoff (CFP) games will be used for quarterfinal and semifinal games on a rotating basis. The championship game will be played the second Monday of January. Other bowl games will provides post-season experience for teams as in the current FBS system.
In my restructuring of conferences, considerations were based on geography, maintaining traditional rivalries and competitive balance. The new leagues:
It’s not perfect, but it’s a dramatic improvement over the current set-up. The realignment will help develop regional interest in games and leagues, limit travel expenses and have a positive effect on college athletics.
Readers: What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments below.
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