Limey Frog
Full Member
There was an interesting discussion on today's Andy Staples podcast, with Cole Cubelic who recently had Trent Dilfer on his radio show in Birmingham. Evidently Difler said that, from conversations he has had with people who know such things, there are high-level discussions going on currently about creating a break-away subdivision for major college football. This would be the Big Ten and SEC plus various ACC and Big 12 programs that are valuable enough to participate.
Staples and Cubelic's discussion is the first 45 minutes below, and Dilfer's comments are excerpted toward the beginning of the episode.
Around 35 minutes Staples and Dilfer start spit-balling about how many teams there would be room for. Dilfer said 50-60. Staples and Cubelic speculated 48 for the sake of having even divisions like the NFL. Obviously it's all speculation, but law suits against the NCAA have blown up the current model and a redesign for college football is coming sooner than later. (Dilfer's number would probably have room for TCU; Staples' likely wouldn't.)
Personally, I'm fine with players being paid, football programs being separated from university administrations as sub-licensed semi-independent "brands," etc. I would like to see roster stability, players remain enrolled students thereby functioning as work-study employees in some capacity, limits on transfers, some effort to secure a degree of parity, and an end to destructive inter-conference raiding of member programs. I just wish that whatever they're going to do they would just get on and do it, instead of making decisions piecemeal. College football has always evolved in a haphazard way, such that while each decision effecting change makes some sense to at least some parties on some level, the whole is a Frankenstein's Monster of irrationality. There are many iterations of how reforms could go, ranging from things that would make college football totally unappealing to things that would make it better than ever. Of course my ultimate red line is whether TCU football is in or out of such a system. If we're cut out, I'm getting off the train and will never watch any of it.
At any rate, maybe the scumbags in control of this thing will tell us sometime in the next two years whether TCU football will be allowed to continue punching above its weight class, or whether they're going to come back around to finish the assassination attempt the 'Whorns and Aggy botched in 1995.
Staples and Cubelic's discussion is the first 45 minutes below, and Dilfer's comments are excerpted toward the beginning of the episode.
Around 35 minutes Staples and Dilfer start spit-balling about how many teams there would be room for. Dilfer said 50-60. Staples and Cubelic speculated 48 for the sake of having even divisions like the NFL. Obviously it's all speculation, but law suits against the NCAA have blown up the current model and a redesign for college football is coming sooner than later. (Dilfer's number would probably have room for TCU; Staples' likely wouldn't.)
Personally, I'm fine with players being paid, football programs being separated from university administrations as sub-licensed semi-independent "brands," etc. I would like to see roster stability, players remain enrolled students thereby functioning as work-study employees in some capacity, limits on transfers, some effort to secure a degree of parity, and an end to destructive inter-conference raiding of member programs. I just wish that whatever they're going to do they would just get on and do it, instead of making decisions piecemeal. College football has always evolved in a haphazard way, such that while each decision effecting change makes some sense to at least some parties on some level, the whole is a Frankenstein's Monster of irrationality. There are many iterations of how reforms could go, ranging from things that would make college football totally unappealing to things that would make it better than ever. Of course my ultimate red line is whether TCU football is in or out of such a system. If we're cut out, I'm getting off the train and will never watch any of it.
At any rate, maybe the scumbags in control of this thing will tell us sometime in the next two years whether TCU football will be allowed to continue punching above its weight class, or whether they're going to come back around to finish the assassination attempt the 'Whorns and Aggy botched in 1995.
