NCAA Should Realign Divisions with Geography (Not Just Money) in Mind
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The new reality we live in means it's time for a drastic realignment of college sports,
00:09at least according to our senior writer, Pat Forty, who has a plan for a 120-school ecosystem,
00:1510 leagues, each with 12 members, a round-robin schedule, and all 10 conference champions
00:22plus two at-large teams chosen by the selection committee for the college football playoff.
00:26Pat, why do you think this is the right idea right now?
00:29Well, I think it's time to try something radically different.
00:33The things that I like about this plan, Robin, as opposed to the current plan, is it makes
00:37sense geographically.
00:39We got to a stage with the last realignment, 2010 to 2014, where schools were being shuttled
00:45all over the map to make conferences.
00:48Now, let's get back to basics of play your neighbors, have a neighborhood champion, so
00:54to speak.
00:55You are raising money, you are asking less of your student-athletes, and you are maintaining
01:01and or creating regional rivalries that I think are good for the sport.
01:05And then I think the expanded playoff would be a big hit as well, because that's a whole
01:10lot of money for one thing, and then people get to see more teams in it.
01:13I think that's what people want.
01:14So you start with 12 teams there, four of them get buys, the other eight play on campus
01:19sites, you have quarterfinals on campus, then you have semifinals in bowl games, and the
01:24championship is the way we have for the last few years.
01:27I think it's win-win.
01:28Nobody else is going to see it that way, but that's what I think.
01:31Well, you're saying it's something that makes sense, right?
01:34Because if you look at the current structure, when they did realign, I don't know exactly
01:39if cents went into there, at least common sense, dollars and cents did.
01:43Well, yeah, to put Texas Tech and Lubbock, Texas and West Virginia and Morgantown, West
01:48Virginia in the same league with one another made no sense whatsoever.
01:52Missouri in the same division with Florida.
01:56Colorado is in the same division with USC, UCLA.
02:00I mean, you can go on through the list of new arrangements that were made that were
02:05done purely to help drive media rights and not very much to drive any sort of map
02:11sensibilities.
02:13Well, this creates rivalries, as you said, makes sense geographically and expands that
02:18playoff. So I'm down with the Pat Forty realignment plan.
02:21Pat, appreciate your time, as always.
02:24There's one. You and I, let's go.
02:25Thank you.