In the last few years of college football, there have been plenty of new developments that have revolutionized the sport while simultaneously causing confusion and handwringing from fans, media and coaches alike.
There are many reasons for this, with the rules and structure of the sport seemingly changing every season. Complaints over the calendar, playoff size and automatic bids have dominated the headlines in recent years, all against the backdrop of NIL, the transfer portal and conference realignment.
The biggest problem in college football simply seems to be a lack of standardization. College football is now way too much for the NCAA to handle, and as such, it should be treated differently than every other sport. That goes for how its money is managed through media rights and revenue sharing, as well as how its champion is crowned.
The NFL seems to have it down and football players are in a class unto themselves as it relates to fame and fortune at the college level. So why not try to copy the professional model and try to apply it to a much bigger scale? Well, that’s what we’ll be attempting to do today with a three-step plan to standardize college football while seeking to maximize entertainment.
Step 1: Conference Realignment
If you’re a fan of traditionalism in college football, the alignment of conferences that had been in place for much of the 21st century was likely appealing to you. They made sense geographically, had rich histories and preserved the rivalries that make college football so great. In 2026, conferences feature schools from coast to coast, and even have different numbers of teams.
So let’s try to standardize things a bit by making conferences that are (at least somewhat) balanced in terms of their competitiveness, geographically sound, and all have the same number of schools. Keep in mind this structure is only with football in mind, but might make sense for other sports, especially for travel purposes.
Here’s a look at how a new Power 5 could work:
This structure includes all 68 teams that are currently in Power 4 conferences plus 12 additional schools, giving us a total of 80 that can be divided into five conferences with 16 teams each. It keeps geography at the forefront for travel purposes, while also mixing in some of the long-standing relationships between schools.
Our Pacific Coast conference looks just like the old PAC-12 with the addition of BYU, Boise State, UNLV and San Diego State. Our Southwest conference is just like the modern Big 12 with some shades of the old Big Eight and the old Southwest Conference that had existed until 1996. Our new Midwest conference looks much like the Big Ten we all know and love with the addition of Cincinnati, Iowa State, Louisville, Pittsburgh and West Virginia.
Jumping down to the Southeast, we roughly have the modern SEC with the addition of some smaller schools in the region that have routinely punched above their weight in the Group of 5 ranks like Appalachian State, Liberty, Tulane, UCF and USF. Finally, welcome to conference play, Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish join the reworked ACC (kicking and screaming), along with James Madison, Maryland and Rutgers.
We’ll talk more about the playoff momentarily, but these would be the 80 teams eligible to compete for a championship at the FBS level. As for our “Group of 5” schools, they’d be dropping down to the FCS level to compete for a national title of their own. Let’s face it, those teams have next to zero shot of winning a national title as things stand today. They’re hardly playing the same sport, so allowing them to compete with smaller schools in their own playoff gives them a chance to win on a national level.
However, we’ll keep our newly-made FCS involved. Let’s partner the Pacific Coast with the Mountain West, the Southwest with the Sun Belt, the Midwest with the MAC, the Southeast with C-USA, and the ACC with the American. They can schedule non-conference games against each other and participate in a relegation and promotion system that’s used by European soccer leagues. This would allow the small schools a path to compete with the big boys, should they sustain strong performance over the course of a few seasons.
Our biggest obstacle here (and it’s a big one) would be media rights for each conference, but the best possible workaround would be deals negotiated by a larger entity (such as the NCAA or College Football Playoff Committee), that seek to make broadcasting FBS-wide rather than on a conference-by-conference basis. And with so many games and so many media suitors like ESPN, FOX, NBC, Turner, and the introductions of Amazon and Netflix to the game, there’s room for everyone to get their fill.
Step 2: Standardizing Strength of Schedule
Weak non-conference schedules will become a thing of the past with our new standardized schedules, much like those that exist in the NFL. To start, let’s keep the regular season at 12 games, but start one week earlier (where Week 0 currently is) to allow for two bye weeks for every team.
Next, we’ll make it so that every team has to play eight conference games, two non-conference games against other Power 5 teams, and two non-conference games against Group of 5 teams. This should ensure the complaints about “weak” schedules are kept to a minimum come playoff time, as every Power 5 school will be playing 10 games against other Power 5 schools.
Furthermore, it provides more opportunities for matchups between big programs that don’t cross paths all that often. How neat has it been to see Texas at the Big House, Ohio State at Notre Dame, Utah in the Swamp, and Auburn at Penn State’s White Out in recent years? More of these marquee matchups should only attract more eyeballs and more money for the sport.
How do we determine who plays who, though? We’ll use the NFL’s system of matching up opponents who finished with similar records during the previous season.
For example, the Detroit Lions finished in fourth place in the NFC North in 2025, so they play against fourth-place teams in the AFC South (Titans), NFC East (Giants) and NFC West (Cardinals) in 2026. Using Michigan as an example on the college level, the Wolverines finished tied for the third-best record among our Midwest teams in 2025, so they’d be playing two games against teams that finished similarly, such as Vanderbilt, Houston, Miami and Utah in 2026, with one game being at home and the other on the road.
These cross-conference matchups, as well as the conference matchups, can be completely randomized year over year. Furthermore, the non-conference games can be randomly placed on the schedule to add some intrigue. The lone exception to this would be rivalry games, which can be placed in their traditional spots on the schedule and count toward a team’s non-conference matchups, such as Notre Dame and Stanford or Georgia and Georgia Tech.
And while we’re at it, air the schedule making on live TV for all to see during the spring and make a big spectacle of it like the NFL’s schedule release or NBA Draft lottery for accountability and entertainment purposes.
Here’s an example of what a schedule could look like for one school from each conference (Washington, Oklahoma, Michigan, Tennessee, and Notre Dame) based on our stipulations with non-conference matchups highlighted:
Step 3: Postseason Play
We’ve reached everyone’s favorite topic — determining who should and should not make the College Football Playoff. Take a deep breath, everyone.
Based on the structure we’ve put together so far with more balanced conferences and a standardized schedule, it actually makes sense there should be more parity and viable playoff contenders by the end of the year. And with no guaranteed spots for conference champions (more on that in a minute), we’ll actually expand the playoff to 16 teams, much like it actually will be in the next few years. When you consider the NFL effectively uses a 14-team playoff for a 32-team league, a 16-team playoff for an 80-team FBS doesn’t seem all that bad.
With the playoff this big, there’s no need for conference championship games anymore, since it’s unlikely they’ll impact who’s in and who’s out. We’ll still give automatic bids, but keep them modest with the top two teams from each conference getting into the playoff — and much like the NFL, we’ll base this on overall record instead of conference record to ensure the best teams with the best resumes are getting in. The remaining six spots can be committee-determined at-large bids, while the same committee will determine the playoff’s overall seeding much like how it’s done for the NCAA basketball tournament.
We’ll keep the rest of the structure similar to how it’s done today, with the first round being on-campus games, while the quarterfinals and semifinals will be the New Year’s Six bowls. Here’s what this would’ve looked like in 2025 with the seeding being based on the final AP Poll:
The final detail here solves one of the biggest problems that’s been pointed out by coaches across the country. We’ll move the playoff up so it starts exactly two weeks after the regular season ends with each round being spaced exactly one week apart. Based on the dates for the 2026 season, it happens to line up with the National Championship being played on Jan. 2, but even if that has to get pushed back a few days to ensure it happens on a Saturday (or even a Friday), it’s much better than playing on a Monday in late January.
This guarantees the end of the season lines up closer with the start of the winter semester for many schools, allowing for a smoother transfer portal period where every team can participate equally and players (and coaches, for that matter) don’t have to leave their teams in the middle of playoff runs. Additionally, it prevents fan interest from fading too much over the course of a long layoff and ensures the offseason is longer and more refreshing for the players.
Where does it leave us?
While our proposal has its obstacles, it addresses some of the concerns fans have with the sport, all while steering it towards a standardized NFL-like model that can partially address competitive balance while also providing more excitement during the regular season. The other side of the coin, which would give even more standardization, would be the major reforms to NIL and the transfer portal that many have asked for, which warrants its own deep dive in due time.
What are your thoughts on this proposal? Let us know in the comments below.
