In my travels of rec.sport.football.college, I have made my position clear:
- The amateur/NCAA model is dead. Whatever the under-the-table situation did to start it, NIL finished it. It will be some form of professional ball.
- You will start seeing "lesser divisions" dropping schools from football (expense, liability, etc.), especially as NIL deals force the talent which might've "stayed home" in FCS/D2/D3 to go to D1...
- ... which will then funnel all the talent upward, and eventually you will get:
- One national super-conference, 32ish schools
- The NFL will run it as it's college-level minor-league (which is what most of the true "minor league football" actually is -- one of the reasons a number of "NFL opportunity" spring leagues haven't taken a great degree of root (two versions of the XFL, the second version of the USFL has still not left the one-city model, so no one shows up for anyone else's games, blowing up the cred of that league, the death already of the AAFL)
- Most of the rest of football will become a "club sport", not unlike rugby and the like, in most other colleges -- whatever tradition keeps going will be at that level.
Because of the following things that at least have been placed in discussion:
- Washington Post: A "Super League", with the next decade basically falling to two super-conferences. The rest of the schools, the article notes, would be a "footnote".
- This off comments from the Nebraska AD that they aren't done.
- Almost indicating that the ACC is the next domino to fall, and, probably by 2026 at the latest, we get to three conferences.
- There's even been at least one Twitter post regarding a 5-6 tier English-soccer style promotion-relegation system.
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