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The sport is devolving into a random mashup of random teams forced to play each other for the almighty dollar. The fix is to once again embrace history, tradition, and… geography?
From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about what we would do if we were in charge of our favorite position group, team, conference, or sport. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our ”If I Was in Charge” articles here.
Like most – ok, all – dedicated (obsessed) sports fans, I have a long list of things that I would change, implement, and/or require if I was in charge. Things about or pertaining to my favorite teams, the coaches, the uniforms, the leagues in which they play, the rules of the sport(s), you name it.
So naturally, I was glad to see that the decision makers here at LGHL gave me/the staff plenty of leeway to rant, write, and/or talk about such things this week, with their selection of the content theme If I Was in Charge — IIWIC for short.
Jumping right into it, if I was in charge, I would require the Cincinnati Reds to spend real American currency in an effort to make their baseball team truly competitive. Oh, what’s that? I should probably focus on something Ohio State-related or adjacent? You’re probably right, given LGHL’s primary audience. I just wanted to fire at least one shot at arguably the worst-run professional sports franchise in North America. Moving on…
While IIWIC is a terrible acronym, the theme itself opens up so many possibilities and/or avenues to explore. Do I want to go serious scorched earth and say that if I was in charge, OSU would hire a new school president? Eh, that seems a bit harsh. I mean, who among us has never stepped in a giant pile of their own shit at a new job?
Or should I go silly/humorous and say that if I was in charge, the school’s football team would run a wishbone offense? Seems both plausible and fun given the Buckeyes’ current personnel.
Ultimately, I decided to “split the fairway” like notorious criminal/world’s best golfer Scottie Scheffler and put a semi-serious spin on something about which I have a firmly held belief or conviction. Shoot, there I go with bad wordplay regarding Scheffler.
Getting to the point: If I was in charge, I would dismantle all of the current Power Five conferences in college football and come up with a new (potentially old?) alignment that makes some semblance of geographic sense. In other words, I want to #makethePAC12greatagain and fix the Big 12 – currently comprised of 16 teams because of course it is – so that BYU and UCF or Cincinnati are never, ever, ever considered conference rivals.
My desire to fix CFB conferences stems from more than just a love of tradition, which I will absolutely get to. There is also a practical element to it. While I realize that not every sports league and/or division is formed or divided up with geography in mind, most at least acknowledge that it (geography) freaking exists. And can even act as a natural or potential “rivalry creator”.
The Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals (and their fan bases) hate each other because they compete in the same state and conference. The same goes for North Carolina and Duke at the college level. Michigan and Ohio State are feuding neighbors, as are the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
The last three rivalries above are three of the best, most contentious, most followed/popular rivalries in all of sports, due at least in part to the teams’ proximity to – and familiarity with – each other. However, that’s jumping the gun to tradition.
Sticking with practicality, logic, and common sense for a minute: Forcing student athletes to (potentially) make several coast-to-coast trips lacks all three. Most professional athletes hate exorbitant amounts of travel — and they don’t have group projects, labs, and/or tests to worry about. But the ACC/CFB powers-that-be are more than willing to send SMU to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to play Wake Forest on a random Friday night in November!? I mean, what are we doin’ here?
And forget about the effect this will have on players and even coaches for a second. Who the hell is attending this SMU-Wake game? Other than diehard Demon Deacon(s) fans? Is Johnny Quarterback’s dad, an SMU legend from the Pony Express days, flying from Dallas to Winston-Salem after work on Friday? It makes absolutely no sense to create more of these random matchups.
Obviously I am referencing one extreme example, but that’s just college football, where teams play one game per week and a total of 12 during the regular season. College softball and baseball teams play 50+. How many mid-week trips across various time zones will that require? With all the future travel involved, it is only a matter of time before (more) non-revenue-generating sports and/or programs are eliminated. But that’s a different conversation for a different day.
Now let’s talk tradition. What the hell happened to it, in CFB specifically!? All these conference changes have me sitting over here like Vito Corleone in “The Godfather”/movie meme: Look how they massacred my boy. Because soon to be gone are the days of traditional rivals playing each other every single year.
Instead, we will be lucky to see Oregon’s Civil War beyond 2025. The same goes for West Virginia vs. Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl, although that rivalry already took a break from 2011-2022 and is currently scheduled to pick back up in 2029.
But who knows if that will ever come to fruition. We have no idea what CFB will look like tomorrow, let alone in a handful of years. So the Backyard Brawl could absolutely fall by the wayside again — like Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State is set to do with the Sooners joining the SEC.
If I was in charge, conferences would make sense (again). And we would bring back/protect as many classic rivalries as possible. Meaning the ACC would only feature teams in relatively close proximity to the Atlantic coast. The term “SEC country” would only come up in conversation when referring to the southeastern part or region of the country. The Mountain West would be a big deal, the Big East would matter in football, the Pac-10/12 would make a comeback, and the Big Ten would – and could, thank goodness – finally get rid of Rutgers and/or Maryland!
And none of this would be very difficult to figure out! I would simply divide the country into six or eight regions, and then whittle things down from there. Maybe I have trouble with where to place a Colorado or a Nebraska, but I’d figure it out eventually, all while absolutely accounting for rivalries and long-time conference affiliations. Best of all, my plan/way would actually make some f*@%ing sense! Unlike Stanford playing in the ATLANTIC COAST Conference.
So there ya have it, folks. If I was in charge, I would bring tradition, pageantry, and common sense back to college football. Of course, then I would need to tackle this NIL problem…
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