10. We’re WAY overdue for expansion talk to heat up.
Utah was a Group of Five program until the 2011 season debut in the Pac-12. TCU was a GO5er until joining the Big 12 in 2012.
How the Big 12 hasn’t snapped up the I-4 corridor, recruiting base, massive alumni following and TV markets of UCF and USF is 90 feet above my pay grade. And throw Cincinnati in there, too.
But it’s not just about the big fish swallowing up the smaller ones. We’re way overdue for a full-on corporate raid with something bigger than the Big Ten getting Rutgers and Maryland.
Come on, Big Ten – go after North Carolina. We know you want to.
Go after Texas – we know you were spitballing the idea at one point.
Come on, Pac-12. You have new leadership – go get Oklahoma like you sort of hinted at wanting to do a decade ago, and maybe go big with Texas, too.
Let’s go, ACC, and put a ring on it – make Notre Dame a sweetheart of a deal. How much fun was 2020?
We need wild and totally irresponsible suggestions flying around.
SEC, swallow up Florida State and Miami. And while you’re at it, your conference revolves around Atlanta and you don’t have Georgia Tech?
You just going to take that, ACC? South Carolina is in your geographic wheelhouse, as is West Virginia.
It’s time to shake things up a bit.
9. You’re going to care about this whole NIL thing whether you like it or not.
I have tried to get friends and family into the whole Name Image and Likeness thing, and their eyes glaze over like mine do when they start talking about the latest episode of WandaVision.
You’re going to care, college football fans. Oh yes, you’re going to care.
No, players being able to potentially be compensated with something more than the usual tuition, room & board isn’t going to mean much to you, and being in a video game won’t be without its charm, but all of this brings about other opportunities and ideas that you will care about, like players being able to declare for the draft, and then being able to come back and eligible if it doesn’t work like they wanted it to.
Speaking of which …
8. More and more players are going to opt-out in the middle of the season …
Or leave for the transfer portal.
Duke’s Jalen Johnson leaving the basketball team got him blasted in some circles for being a quitter in what seemed like a lost year, but if he wants to get ready for the NBA, okay.
Major college athletics is a business. Get used to it.
First it became a bit of a thing when college football stars didn’t want to risk injury by playing in a bowl game that’s really nothing more than an exhibition – and those who dogged them had no answer for why that’s not okay, but it’s kosher for a coach to bail for another gig.
Last year, some star prospects opted out citing COVID concerns, and others just simply didn’t play, or played a little and then stopped when it became clear that certain teams playing each week wasn’t a given.
Now, get ready for more and more top NFL prospects to realize that it’s just not worth the risk the second their team is out of the College Football Playoff chase, and/or if the season goes sour, and/or he just doesn’t want to play for whatever peanuts the NIL things throw his way.
7. The bowl season has to be better … and they will be.
I love bowl games.
I know they don’t really matter in a College Football Playoff world, and I know they’ve been devalued as top players and coaches are often gone for other things or have their hearts half in them, but I don’t care.
I love bowl games, and after last season, I need the bowl games to love me right back.
To be fair, most teams took a pass on the bowls after a rough regular season, and that created a whole slew of awful matchups.
A lot of the bowls were cancelled, 16 of the games were double-digit blowouts, and a bunch of the closer ones were tight in score only.
I’m sorry, the fricking Rose Bowl isn’t the Rose Bowl if it’s not played in Pasadena.
We’ll get a better bowl season with the tie-ins close to normal, the freebie pass to losing teams revoked, and – hopefully – all the games played again.
6. The Heisman race has to be better.
2015 was the last time I can remember getting into the Heisman arguments on a daily basis – and, yes, I was right that Derrick Henry deserved it over Christian McCaffrey, (sticking tongue out) nyah.
I fought the good fight for Deshaun over Lamar in 2016, but Baker, Kyler and Burrow were all obvious and anti-climactic.
Last year should’ve been a knock down, drag out battle around the greatest individual trophy in all of sports, and then DeVonta Smith won and the world moved on.
Maybe it’s because everyone’s attention was on that presidential election thingy, or maybe few had the fire to get into it, but there just wasn’t any real Heisman buzz like there was five, ten, 20 years ago. The College Football Playoff has sort of sucked the oxygen out of the room, but it’s not like the BCS debates were any less fierce back in the day.
I want people to get into the Heisman again. It’s fun.