Coaches being paid out millions to get lost, conference re-alignment that makes no sense, and games on the schedule that shouldn’t be played. This is the reality of NCAA Football in 2025. There are a lot of things that make no sense. When is the portal actually opened or closed? How many teams should be in the playoffs? Why are we still playing bowls?

It’s madness.

I’ve thought about it a bit this season, and begun to come up with how I want it to look- which won’t be how it goes. Even so, we have to start making some level of sense of the game again. What does winning your conference mean? What makes a team a playoff team? Can there be fairness with independent teams? Why did we kill geography? All of these can be answered. And fairly.

So let’s start at the important thing- the conferences. Realignment is basically rendering all conferences but two as irrelevant. If that’s the case, maybe we need a third D-1 to go with FBS and FCS. I don’t think we should go there. I would create six conferences of 20 teams- the Big 20, SEC, Atlantic 20, Big West, PAC 20, and American 20-, one conference of 16 (MAC), and Notre Dame can stay independent how they want. Here’s how I’d break them out-

• Big 20– Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, Mizzou, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon, UCLA, and USC. They get their national conference. They shed a couple of schools who are better off elsewhere. Everyone can be happy and regionalism can die a slow death.
• SEC– Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Clemson, Georgia, Florida State, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M. And here is the most regional conference literally ever. They get to go all the way up to Virginia and bring in the whole old confederacy, plus. Who says no?
• Atlantic 20– UMASS, Boston College, UCONN, Army, Syracuse, Rutgers, Temple, Pitt, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Louisville, Navy, Maryland, Virginia Tech, NC State, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, UCF, South Florida, and Miami. And here we get the entire eastern seaboard united in what is essentially some sort of mix of Big East and ACC. Basically every big east coast market from Boston to Miami gets in on this. The Big 12 is free of it’s weird eastern arm. The teams that wanted out of the ACC get to leave, everyone else plays on.
• Big West– Houston, Baylor, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Iowa State, Air Force, Colorado State, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, UNLV, Boise State, Washington State, Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, and San Diego State. Basically, this is the premier conference west of the Mississippi River. There is somewhat of a mix academically, and that could make it a bit interchangeable with the next conference, but it would make for fun rivalries.
• PAC 20– Louisiana, Tulane, Arkansas State, Memphis,Tulsa, Sam Houston, UTSA, North Texas, Rice, Texas State, UTEP, New Mexico State, New Mexico, Utah State, Wyoming, Nevada, San Jose State, Fresno State, Sacramento State, and Hawai’i. Again, another large Western leaning conference.
• American 20– Delaware, James Madison, Liberty, ODU, Appalachian State, East Carolina, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, George Southern, Jacksonville State, FIU, Florida Atlantic, South Alabama, Troy, UAB, Southern Miss, Louisiana-Monroe, and Louisiana Tech. This is a more east leaning version of the last conference.
• MAC– Ohio, Buffalo, Northern Illinois, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Toledo, Kent State, Akron, Miami Ohio, Ball State, Bowling Green, Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, and Missouri State. We all love the MAC.
• Independent– Notre Dame.

Ok, so now that I am sure I pissed most of you off, good. Now we move on to scheduling. Every one of these conferences should agree to an 8 game schedule inside the conference. The “power” conferences (the first three or four) should agree to 8 conference games, 2 games against other power conferences, and no FCS games. Since Notre Dame has no conference and no conference title game, they should agree to a 13 game schedule, ten of which are against power conferences, and no FCS games. In exchange, the power conferences get two automatic bids to the playoffs, and Notre Dame can qualify automatically at 10-3 or 11-2 every year. Make the season 15 weeks to give every team a week or two off.

As for the playoff- 16 teams, period. All seven conference champions qualify automatically. The “power 4” conferences get a second. Notre Dame can qualify automatically if they win enough. That gives you 11 or 12 teams in automatically every year. Four or five at-large bids for the committee to hand out as they see fit. Seed based on BCS ranking. Week one at the higher seed. Then rotated the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta, and Peach Bowl for the next two rounds. Highest seed can pick where they go among that round’s options. The rest of the bowls continue as is.

As for the portal and the NIL, there needs to be some rules. The portal should have very specific pre and post season dates that don’t move often at all. The package the schools actually are involved with for NIL’s should have a “by sport” salary cap. You can’t regulate outside groups, but at least reign it in.

This would be my initial fix. Some people would hate it, but it’s a start.