The Time to Incorporate Relegation into College Football has Come

[NorthKCHawk]

So, I see three obvious, but solvable, problems with college football:

1. There are too many teams. They can't play each other enough to get to a merits based playoff system like the NFL has, so we have to rely upon a group of humans rather than play on the field. Committees and polls are wrong a lot.
2. The current system has too many tin can games where Purdue is playing OSU or NW has to get whooped by PSU. We need more "good on good" games that have real meaning.
3. Without divisions anymore, fan bases are losing things to care about way to early in the season. What is Iowa playing for? The precise mid-tier bowl it will play in? Yawn.

Relegation/Promotion addresses all of these issues.
First, for discussion purposes let's assume the move to super conferences continues, but we end up with three 20-team conferences, here is how it could work:

Each conference has a Premier (top) and Champions division of 10 teams each. Only the teams in the Premier Division are eligible for the playoffs. The 10 teams in each division play the other 9 teams and at the end of the year through various tie-breakers each of the 10 teams will have a rank within the division. The Top 4 teams in each of the conference Premier divisions go into the 12-team playoffs. The bottom 4 teams in the Premier division are relegated to the Champions division the next year. The Top 4 in the Champions Division are promoted. No conference title game. Keep the bowl games for fun. The other three preseason games do not count towards the standings, so schedule anyone you want. Polls are absolutely irrelevant.

There are many ways to structure this, but what I love about relegation is that pretty much everyone but the bottom couple teams has a huge incentive to win those last few games. It would make college football more exciting and make every game hugely relevant pretty much through the final game.

 

[SCHawkeye2]

Perhaps an NIL cap per team similar to salary caps in professional sports?

 

[Grady]

So, I see three obvious, but solvable, problems with college football:

1. There are too many teams. They can't play each other enough to get to a merits based playoff system like the NFL has, so we have to rely upon a group of humans rather than play on the field. Committees and polls are wrong a lot.
2. The current system has too many tin can games where Purdue is playing OSU or NW has to get whooped by PSU. We need more "good on good" games that have real meaning.
3. Without divisions anymore, fan bases are losing things to care about way to early in the season. What is Iowa playing for? The precise mid-tier bowl it will play in? Yawn.

Relegation/Promotion addresses all of these issues.
First, for discussion purposes let's assume the move to super conferences continues, but we end up with three 20-team conferences, here is how it could work:

Each conference has a Premier (top) and Champions division of 10 teams each. Only the teams in the Premier Division are eligible for the playoffs. The 10 teams in each division play the other 9 teams and at the end of the year through various tie-breakers each of the 10 teams will have a rank within the division. The Top 4 teams in each of the conference Premier divisions go into the 12-team playoffs. The bottom 4 teams in the Premier division are relegated to the Champions division the next year. The Top 4 in the Champions Division are promoted. No conference title game. Keep the bowl games for fun. The other three preseason games do not count towards the standings, so schedule anyone you want. Polls are absolutely irrelevant.

There are many ways to structure this, but what I love about relegation is that pretty much everyone but the bottom couple teams has a huge incentive to win those last few games. It would make college football more exciting and make every game hugely relevant pretty much through the final game.

Interesting idea. The biggest problem I see with your proposal is that it picks which teams are the 'best' teams in each conference before any of them play a game. Consider Indiana. By any measure, going into this year they would have been placed in the BTen 'Champions' division -- indicating they are not one of the top 10 teams in the BTen. Their reward for going 9-0 in the Champions division? Getting to move up to the Premier division NEXT SEASON. Which, during this time of transfer portals and NIL, isn't really much of a reward at all. Other than the top 4 teams in each conference, no one really knows WHO is going to be good the following season. Heck, Indiana could end up being terrible next season, and go winless in the Premier division.
Somehow, any system needs to assure that the best teams THIS YEAR play the other best teams THIS YEAR. I like the idea of divisions -- maybe 3 in each conference -- with the winners of each division playing each other, with the top ranked division winner getting a 1st round bye. And the divisions could be reorganized each year based on the previous year's results -- to avoid the East/West division problems the BTen had the past 10 years where the divisions became so unequal.

 

[guffus]

We already have promotion/relegation in 2024.

USC, UCLA, Wash, Ore got promoted to the P2 (Big Ten, SEC)

Ariz, Ariz St, Utah, Coll, Stan, Cal, SMU went to the M2 (Big 12, ACC, ND)

Wash St, Ore St got demoted to G6 (Pac, old G5, UConn)

 

[NorthKCHawk]

Interesting idea. The biggest problem I see with your proposal is that it picks which teams are the 'best' teams in each conference before any of them play a game. Consider Indiana. By any measure, going into this year they would have been placed in the BTen 'Champions' division -- indicating they are not one of the top 10 teams in the BTen. Their reward for going 9-0 in the Champions division? Getting to move up to the Premier division NEXT SEASON. Which, during this time of transfer portals and NIL, isn't really much of a reward at all. Other than the top 4 teams in each conference, no one really knows WHO is going to be good the following season. Heck, Indiana could end up being terrible next season, and go winless in the Premier division.
Somehow, any system needs to assure that the best teams THIS YEAR play the other best teams THIS YEAR. I like the idea of divisions -- maybe 3 in each conference -- with the winners of each division playing each other, with the top ranked division winner getting a 1st round bye. And the divisions could be reorganized each year based on the previous year's results -- to avoid the East/West division problems the BTen had the past 10 years where the divisions became so unequal.

To be clear, yes, you would have to divide the divisions up somehow the first year. Probably based on the performance the previous year. But, after that, the divisions would change each year with 4 teams swapping out from each division each year based upon performance on the field. After the first year, humans and polls would not be relevant.

I have also heard a proposal for something called Dynamic Divisions. There you would try to divide the teams taking into account rivalries, geography, and balance, but you would reshuffle it every 2 years. So you would have 9 games against your division home and away for two years, and the winners of each division play each other for the title, and then things get reshuffled. Sort of like the old Legends and Leaders, but just for two years at a time to avoid a situation where one static division dominates the other.

I am in favor of anything that brings back more titles so that teams like Iowa have a realistic goal to shoot for. Getting to a conference title game in an 18 team league is a very tall task. Look at MBB.

 

[kicker22]

I've always been a fan of European soccer so I have no issues with a relegation system. However I agree with those that say in doing so you're penalizing teams like Indiana that are having fantastic seasons and would other wise simply be playing to be promoted at the end of this season. I guess my thought is why limit things to just a tournament for the "premier" division when you could do the same for the "champions" division as well.

That said, I do disagree with the mentality in the OP stating "3. Without divisions anymore, fan bases are losing things to care about way to early in the season. What is Iowa playing for? The precise mid-tier bowl it will play in? Yawn." I hate to say it, but I think mentality is flawed as to be realistic not every team is a contender and that needs to be accepted. While teams would be relegated and promoted the truth is it might make things more entertaining, but the fact is even in the top division your still going to have the elites on one level followed by everyone else. Very rarely would the teams being promoted find consistent footing to really push to make the playoffs, but you'd more often then not see them battling to avoid being relegated the following year.

I'm not saying I'm not for this, because as I stated earlier I absolutely love it, in European soccer, and think it might be good for the sport, but I don't see it changing the big picture.