I think it can and it will make every game more competitive. Here is my proposal about how to make it work.
1. Eliminate conferences by creating level-based hierarchy of college football.
Yes, it’s similar to that English system of 20+ levels with the very bottom teams having the opportunity for the average students to play
2. The top 26 teams are top level. They are divided into 2 groups with each having 13 teams. They play each other within the group. So, for most teams, they have 12 games a season.
The benefits of being a top level team are
1) Fat TV contracts. Each team get 8 games national broadcast contract in a season, negotiated between NCAA and 3 major TVs (e.g.CBS, NBC and ABC/ESPN) and 4-game broadcast contracts, negotiated individually between each school and media companies like Apple TV, Amazon TV or other cable TVs (good for ND and a few football schools with big fan base).
2) Automatic 5th year eligibility (unconditional). Only top level teams plus promoted teams of other levels can enjoy this benefit. All 5th year players get significant stipend ($100k/season for level 1 and $50k for other levels), treating them as a part-time student and a part-time semi-pro.
3. Introduce promotion and relegation.
The bottom 5 teams of each level get relegated to the next lower level and top 5 teams get promoted to higher level. For level 1, it can be decided by this: The 2 bottom teams of each group get automatic relegation. That’s 4 teams. The fifth relegated team is determined by cotton bowl (survival bowl) played by the 3rd bottom team from 2 groups. The loser gets relegated.
Top 2 teams of each group will play sugar bowl and Orange bowl.
#1 of 1st group vs #2 of 2nd group;
#1 of 2nd group vs. #2 of 1st group
Their winners will play Rose bowl for National champion. The losers will play fiesta bowl. So, the maximum games play a team in a season is 12+1+1 = 14 games. The minimum is 12 games. Other current minor bowl games can be used for other levels' promotion games. But I would like to have automatic promotion for the best team in a season.
As mentioned above, there will be 8 div I games nationally broadcasted every week. The schedule is
Friday evening: 1 game
Saturday noon: 3 games
Afternoon: 3 games
Evening: 1 game
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Just picturing Jack explaining to the Crossroads seat buyers why they are going to be watching Gettysburg College next year.