Bleacher Report: TCU's Sonny Dykes Thinks CFB Power Conferences, Group of 5 Could Split 'Eventually'

[TopFrog]

Spending cap is not worth worrying about. Teams will cheat.

That's a joke. You think Aggies or Bama, Miss State et al are not laughing at that?

 

[froglash88]

Maybe, but do you think the former way of having to sit out a year after transfer is fair? Seems a kid should have the right to decide how he wants to use his four years of eligibility. If you agree with that right, then we are unfortunately stuck with the transfer portal, and the big monkey wrench thrown into it is NIL with the lure of more money to incentivize transfers.

And for some, even if they had to sit out one year after transfer they still might transfer for better pay.

I hear you and agree. But we may find out that this transfer issue just might go away for thousands and thousands of athletes when half the country drops their football programs.

 

[82 Frog Fever]

Ross Dellinger and others have reported that the House v. NCAA settlement terms will be finalized within a month. That will set the cap on athletic departments' revenue sharing with players, which will form the basis of (hopefully succinct) draft legislation to give to Congress and say "please give us this anti-trust carve out so we can move forward without getting sued to death". I think with the court settlement there's a good chance that legislation would pass. At that point the exact cost of continuing big time football will be clear and enforceable transfer limitation rules will be possible. Once you have a pretty clear idea of what this thing is going to look like in future the TV networks will tell the SEC and Big Ten exactly how many members they should poach from the ACC (and possibly the Big XII). All of this will take less than 18 months. By the 2025 football season I think we'll know whether TCU is going to be allowed to play or not.

Here's what I'm confident we know:

1. Athletes will get roughly 25% of TV and ticket revenue, probably divided by sport (i.e. football guys will split 80% of the 25%).
2. Maybe 40-50 schools can afford to field big time football programs at that rate of buy-in.
3. TCU is one of those schools.
4. Clemson, FSU, UNC, and Notre Dame will be in the SEC or Big Ten. VT, Virginia, and Miami probably will as well. The Big Ten will be at least 20 members, at which point the SEC will probably get that big, too.

Here's a couple further best guesses:

5. If those conferences don't poach any schools from the Big XII, there's probably just enough room in the future model for three conferences with the Big XII being no. 3 (and an obvious junior partner by a considerable margin).
6. If those conferences decide to go supernova with 24 members each there's probably just enough room for TCU and Baylor. If the number is 22 each we'll probably be left out. At that point we're in the G5 subdivision. Anything above 20 pretty much kills the Big XII as a pseudo-major conference.

That’s a pretty good estimate on how things flow in the set-up phase, but it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Lots of back room deals on the ins/outs, and as it heats up, the legal challenges will complicate everything.
Once the leagues are formed, the CBAs and player’s union evolves.
CFB will soon be NFL-lite with more teams.

 

[Limey Frog]

If it is an average of the schools, that is a good thing and give a fixed rate to all schools. I just have not heard that anywhere, and have a hard time believing the name schools would agree to it and give up that advantage.

Look up the Yahoo college football enquirer podcast with Dan Wetzel.

 

[Toad Jones]

Spending cap is not worth worrying about. Teams will cheat.

you can count on that!

 

[Horned Frog Country]

Spending cap is not worth worrying about. Teams will cheat.

If the NCAA or the new organization were given some real power like an antitrust exception, they might think twice about it if they knew they would enforce the rules. Certain schools cheat and get minimum punishment because they know the NCAA is scared of them leaving.

 

[82 Frog Fever]

Look up the Yahoo college football enquirer podcast with Dan Wetzel.

That’s a terrific show!
It’s a sellers market and the big state teams/bidders have lots of money.
It almost seems like some of the big $ teams, like OU, are trying to push the limits in this window. Their limits today may help push up the floor price for the future.
Basically pricing smaller teams out of the market for really good players.

 

[Spike]

Couple of thoughts: 1. Who will the tune up/homecoming opponents be if there is a split?
2. Schools like Ohio State and Bama love to brag about 10 win seasons even thought they only play maybe 3 or 4 good competitive games a year. If we get to a 25-30 team league, how are they going to respond when every team that they play is competitive and 2 to 4 losses is actually a good season. Also, what does that do to depth when the younger kids are used to getting plenty of playing time during the blowouts but now every game is competitive? Now they can transfer at will.

 

[Wexahu]

Couple of thoughts: 1. Who will the tune up/homecoming opponents be if there is a split?
2. Schools like Ohio State and Bama love to brag about 10 win seasons even thought they only play maybe 3 or 4 good competitive games a year. If we get to a 25-30 team league, how are they going to respond when every team that they play is competitive and 2 to 4 losses is actually a good season. Also, what does that do to depth when the younger kids are used to getting plenty of playing time during the blowouts but now every game is competitive? Now they can transfer at will.

1-3 losses will become the norm for the best teams if their schedules aren’t half filled with gimmes anymore. Expectations will adjust accordingly, I don’t see a downside to that for them.

The ones that transfer will be the kids that don’t get on the field for them or kids that they no longer want to pay. They’ll gladly let those kids go and then go pluck the best players from the less funded schools. That’s a net positive for them. If they really want to keep a kid, they’ll find a way on most cases. $$$$$.

 

[Spike]

1-3 losses will become the norm for the best teams if their schedules aren’t half filled with gimmes anymore. Expectations will adjust accordingly, I don’t see a downside to that for them.

The ones that transfer will be the kids that don’t get on the field for them or kids that they no longer want to pay. They’ll gladly let those kids go and then go pluck the best players from the less funded schools. That’s a net positive for them. If they really want to keep a kid, they’ll find a way on most cases. $$$$$.

I tend to disagree on the 2nd point. I would think it's hard enough as it is to convince a homesick 18 year old who has been a stud all his life up until now that he needs 2 years in the weight room and studying the playbook (not to mention waiting for the monsters ahead of him to graduate or get drafted) before he can be a stud again. Then again, mabe $ solves that problem.

 

[Wexahu]

I tend to disagree on the 2nd point. I would think it's hard enough as it is to convince a homesick 18 year old who has been a stud all his life up until now that he needs 2 years in the weight room and studying the playbook (not to mention waiting for the monsters ahead of him to graduate or get drafted) before he can be a stud again. Then again, mabe $ solves that problem.

When kids can go wherever they want from year to year and immediately play, money is all that matters.

The big $ teams aren’t going to be winning games because of 18 year olds on their team that are developing in the weight room. They’ll be winning games because the 20 year olds that have developed will be playing for them, and not for the team that developed them.

$$$$$$$.

 

[NovaScotiaFrog]

"Eventually"? We split the teams in 1998, then all but solidified that split in 2014 creation of the CFP while relegating even more teams by removing the Big East from the equation. Thankfully, TCU was one of the handful of teams that was able to jump from the lower tier to the higher tier (even though we were kind of already in the higher tier before the first split).

Any sort of split now would just be confirming what we already know.

 

[FrogAbroad]

Just where in the hell are we going anyway??!