College football has changed. NIL, the transfer portal, lawsuits, eligibility fights, revenue sharing, and somehow we’re still trying to govern this version of the sport with a system built for a completely different era.
So I’m saying something that I really, really don’t enjoy saying:
It’s time for the SEC and Big Ten to dump the NCAA.
In this video, I make the case for what a jointly operated SEC/Big Ten football league could actually solve: collective bargaining, player compensation, transfer rules, eligibility, NIL enforcement and, most importantly, ONE set of rules that EVERYBODY has to follow.
Would it look more like professional football? Absolutely.
But college football is already a massive business. The question isn’t whether we can go back to 1998. We can’t. The question is whether we can build something stable enough to protect the parts of college football we all know and love: the campuses, rivalries, bands, fight songs, student sections, traditions and completely irrational hatred of the school one state over.
Nobody fell in love with college football because of centralized amateur athletics governance.
We fell in love with the schools, the places and the people.
Maybe breaking away from the NCAA is crazy.
or maybe…it just means more.
