My Vision for the FBS

Reading about UAB shutting down their football program got me to thinking about my plan for the FBS.  If we want to see college football continue at the same level it's been there need to be some changes made or we may see more programs shutting down.  Why does a program like UAB struggle.  Well all the money that's coming into the sport is crowding to the top teams, top conferences and the little guys like UAB are left out.  How can this be resolved.  Make their games worth money.

Remember when you read this that it assumes we want to keep things moving in the direction it is already moving.  Conferences are no longer regional, there is huge money on the line, etc.  Teams like UAB have floated up to the FBS level hoping to get some of that money, but to survive they have to schedule at least one big time game with guaranteed money.  This has sometimes meant things like Idaho playing in Florida.

How can we make their games worth money you say, give them their own playoff in their own time slot where they aren't competing with the top level FBS programs.  How would this work, well I'll lay it out for you.

FBS Div II

In FBS Div II the teams would play a 10 game season.  They can play one game a year against an FBS Div I opponent and one game a year against an FCS opponent.  At the end of the 10 game season each Conference would have it's championship game.  This would have occurred this year last weekend.

The 5 conference winners plus one wild card would then begin a playoff the next week, and this is where the money comes into play.  In the first week two teams would get a bye and the other four would play.  During this week the playoff games would be competing with the FBS Div I conference championship games, but still these playoff games would get picked up as part of the playoff package.  I would envision these games being played early in the day and the FBS Div I conference games getting the prime time.

The next week would be the final four with two games.  These games would have the weekend all to themselves as the FBS Div I teams would be off.  This would hopefully build interest in people to watch the previous weekend and then gin up interest for the championship game.

The championship game would then be played at night the following week as the FBS Div I playoff first round would be kicking off during the day.

If the NCAA packaged this properly for shopping around their football playoffs I believe this could amount to quite a bit of money for the FBS Div II teams and it would give them a shot at gaining a national audience.  If a team wanted to leave Div II and go to Div I this would have to be agreed upon by the conferences and the schools involved.  For a team to go up, one must come down.

This year's playoff would look something like this.

Boise State vs BYE
Marshall vs BYE
Memphis vs Georgia Southern
Northern Illinois vs Louisiana Tech

American Athletic Memphis Cincinnati Central Florida East Carolina Houston Temple South Florida Telane Tulsa Connecticut SMU Navy	Conf USA Marshall WKU Army Old Dominion Florida Int Florida Atl La Tech Rice UTEP UTSA North Texas Ball State
Mid-American Bowling Green Ohio Buffalo Akron Umass Miami (o) Kent State Northern Illi Toledo Western Mic Central Mic Eastern Mich	Mountain West Boise State Colorado State Utah State Air Force Wyoming New Mexico Fresno State San Diego State Nevada Hawaii San Jose State UNLV Idaho New Mexico State
Sun Belt Georgia Southern Louisiana-Lafayette Appalachian St Arkansas St Texas State South Alabama Louisiana - Monroe Troy Georgia State Southern Miss Middle Tennessee UAB

FBS Div I

In FBS Div I the teams would play an 11 game season.  They can play one game a year against an FBS Div II team.  At the end of the 11 game season each Conference would have it's championship game.  I would reduce the number of regular season games to account for an extra round of playoffs.

The playoffs would be 8 teams.  The five conference winners plus three wild cards.

If a team wanted to move down to Div II a team would need to move up.

This year's playoff would look something like this.

Alabama vs Arizona
Oregon vs Michigan State
Florida State vs TCU
Ohio State vs Baylor

ACC FSU Clemson Louisville Boston College NC State Syracuse Wake Forest Georgia Tech Duke North Carolina Pittsburgh Virginia Virginia Tech Miami	Big 12 Baylor Kansas State TCU Oklahoma Texas WVU Oklahoma State Texas Tech Kansas Iowa State Notre Dame BYU
Big 10 Ohio State Michigan State Maryland Michigan Rutgers Penn State Indiana Wisconsin Minnesota Nebraska Iowa Illinois Northwestern Purdue	Pac 12 Oregon Stanford Washington California Washington State Oregon State Arizona Arizona State USC UCLA Utah Colorado
SEC Missouri Georgia Tech Florida South Carolina Tennessee Kentucky Vanderbilt Alabama Mississippi State Mississippi Auburn LSU Texas A&M Arkansas