Would never fly.
Neither fans nor schools would ever go for an open schedule. It might seem like a novel idea on paper, but it would be the biggest logistical shit show in history. There would be no way to plan in advance as far as travel for teams, ticket sales would be total chaos, fans wouldn't be able to plan trips, etc. This article is written by someone who either has no idea how college football works or is just completely ignorant in general.
What do you do if you're a fan and you want to plan for an away game in the last half of the season? All the sudden now you have to buy plane tickets two weeks before the flight for 3 times the price and hope you can get a hotel room. Same thing for home games. I don't have season tickets and I live 6 hours away from IC, but my son and I go to 2 home games a year and 1 away game. Do you think I'm going to buy tickets ahead of time not knowing who the Hawks are going to play? I have to plan the time off from work far in advance, and there's no way I'm going to buy blank tickets and get stuck with Rutgers or something like that.
That's just from the fan side of things and ignores things like TV crews and equipment, schools printing programs/schedules/etc. Imagine trying to plan for team travel in only a week's time. Totally ridiculous.
I understand where this guy is coming from. Football is unique in that its a sport that you can't play every 2 or 3 days. In baseball or basketball you can actually get a much better idea of who the best teams are because you play 5 and 7 game series. But, with that quirk of football you have to just take it as a part of the game. At the end of the day the conference championship comes down to the best record teams in each division. Sure, that leaves out either Michigan or Ohio State every year which are by far and away the best teams, but how else can you do it with 14 teams?
-Kick 4 teams out of the B1G and get rid of a non-con so you can play everyone? Not going to happen.
-Move either OSU or Michigan to the West? Also never going to happen and even if it did, what would be the benefit if eventually one of those programs tanks?
-Eliminate the East/West divisions and go with a set rotating schedule? You're still left with a bunch of teams every year that don't play each other.
The reality of the sport is that even though conference championships aren't the perfect scenario, they're the best one that exists. The answer certainly isn't to start making up a schedule as you go. The author seems to have thought pretty deeply in the specifics department but doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise. He seems a lot like some engineers that I've worked with in my career. Make something perfect in form and function but leave it unable to be implemented.
