Splitting up FBS makes sense, could save dollars
Today, the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision lives up to its name and decides its national champion. Monday, Alabama and Clemson slug it out in the Football Bowl Subdivision final, which pragmatically is represented only by the Power 5 leagues. The NCAA’s Division II and Division III champions were determined last month on the field of play.
Yet there is a large group of football programs silently at home with no legitimate shot at a national title of any kind. It includes New Mexico and New Mexico State.
That’s why it wasn’t surprising to learn recently that a growing number of Group of 5 officials favor adding a playoff specifically for their schools.
That’s also why it was disappointing to read that UNM athletic director Paul Krebs’ is “not necessarily in favor of it.” Granted, he had pretty much just heard of the idea when contacted by the Journal for comment.
Maybe he’ll change his mind. Not only should a separate playoff be created, but the actions should be more drastic. The FBS should split into two layers.
It must happen — sooner or later — because the existing
economic model of college athletics is not sustainable for a great many schools outside the five big leagues — SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12
The rest of the FBS schools comprise the Group of 5. They include UNM, which has missed athletic budget projections seven of its last nine years — including a $1.54 million red mark for 2015-16 —and receives lots of peer empathy for its pain.
Income is flat, expenses (such as cost of attendance for athletes) go up. And yet, as Bloomberg wrote recently in a series of stories detailing the financial struggles college football creates, the sport is a money-losing drug so many schools can’t quit.
But even if they can’t or won’t, surely they can quit fighting a hopeless arms war with bigger, richer schools, instead exploring creative ways to make money, cut expenses and enhance interest.
Look, there are 128 schools playing at the FBS level for 2016. That nice divisible number makes it too convenient for this argument.
Place the top 64 into four leagues of 16. They are, for lack of a better name, the Super 64. (Can’t call them the Power 5 when proposing they merge into four leagues, after all.) Sorry, Notre Dame and BYU, but you’ve got to join a league if you want to be title eligible.
Then place the Aggies and the Lobos and the rest of the next 64 into, oh, the Next 64.
Each 16-team league in the Super 64 could play a championship game, and its winner would earn an automatic bid into the four-team College Football Playoff semifinals. No hand-wringing over which current Power 5 league gets left out, as the Big 12 has been two of the three CFP postseasons.
That would maximize the value of each league title game. After Ohio State beat Michigan in its regular season finale, the Buckeyes couldn’t get into the Big Ten championship contest without a Penn State loss. But Ohio State’s résumé obviously didn’t need a league title to qualify for the CFP semifinals. It thus didn’t need to root for Penn State to lose and create another exposure to the Buckeyes. How messed up is that?
Each league would have two eight-team divisions; the winners of each would play for the conference title. Each team could play seven division games, two cross-over league opponents, two lower level opponents (maybe two Next 64s one year, then toss a bone to an FCS foe the next), and one highprofile intersectional Super 64 opponent to please ESPN.
What’s great is that the Next 64 could adopt a structure identical to the Super 64 with a few critical exceptions. Next 64 schools could reduce or eliminate expenses such as Cost of Attendance (COA) commitments. They could adopt a lower scholarship threshold for football. It’s 85 for FBS football, 63 for FCS schools. So maybe meet in the middle at 74? If the average FBS football scholarship cost is about $36,070 as one study says it was in 2015, then the reduction of 11 grants saves nearly $400,000.
Competing at a level that requires a reduced financial commitment could make those on main campus at UNM feel better about a football program that has won the last two years and yet can’t draw fans. A Next 64 affiliation in this scenario would mean New Mexico State cuts costs while finding an adoptive league — thus receiving TV money from that league. The affiliation could save the sport at NMSU instead of just putting off its eventual demise, which is what it feels like is happening now.
What are the potential problems with this proposal? It isn’t the other sports, which won’t be touched. Ray Birmingham and UNM baseball can still dream of Omaha. Lobo hoops still can achieve No. 3 NCAA Tournament seeds and hope the No. 14 isn’t Harvard.
Other revenue sources? Sponsorship money might take a hit, true. But maybe the big boys would pay the little guys — in a revenue sharing deal — just to get them out of the way.
TV deals generated through the conferences figure not to be impacted. Next 64 schools could get payday games, as they do now, by playing at the Texas A&Ms and Southern Cals in mutually beneficial arrangements.
And the bowls? The big ones would keep the status quo. Those like the one played at University Stadium, which has tie-ins with lower-tier leagues, could get into the rotation for the Next 64 national semis and finals. Better that than potentially going on the cutting block after the existing bowls deal expires in 2019.
And maybe, just maybe, a certain cherry- and silvertrimmed team could compete for a national title one year, eliciting unprecedented, maniacal interest. Maybe UNM plays for that title in a bowl game on its own field. Certainly there’s precedence for that.
One Group of 5 AD told ESPN. com he opposes creating a lower-level playoff, equating it to a “junior varsity championship.”
Sorry. That ship has sailed. BYU 1984, built upon a perfect storm that included a climactic bowl win over a 6-5 team, will never happen again. Move on.
This may be merely a rant from someone who thinks “why not” instead of “why.” But even a dreamer knows when things can’t go on the way they are for UNM, NMSU and the like.
Isn’t there another way?