Stewart Mandel’s CFB Premier League

[MDUte]

Not sure if Ute Hub saw this 28 team Super League put out by the Athletic’s Stewart Mandel last August…but this would be College Football heaven for me.

College Football’s Premier League

[MDUte]

And here’s the article with more details behind Mandel’s proposal:

College Football Premier League: 28 teams survive in standalone football product

[Central Coast Ute]

That’s awesome. The division is a little weird to me. I would think it would make more sense to switch places with Utah and Nebraska to keep it more regional.

[MDUte]

Agreed, that would be ideal keeping Utah in the West division. But pretty cool to see Utah included in a model that is limited to only 28 teams.

I think any future Super League would have at least 32 teams and most likely 40. The closer to 40 and the more likely it seems Utah would be included.

[2008 National Champ]

The groupings are definitely weird. Miami and Carolina with 5 Northern schools. Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin with the West Coast. Division C schools are all within a couple of hours from Atlanta so travel is the easiest.

Michigan State, Auburn and Oklahoma State feel superfluous for a National conference. But it doesn’t matter what the list is, someone is always going to say others are more deserving. If you want the biggest markets you might change out MSU, OSU, Nebraska, Iowa and Auburn for Rutgers, ASU, Stanford, Northwestern and Colorado. People will complain about that just as much so I don’t know if I made it any better. Probably just different

[AlohaUte]

Not sure I see then keeping out Colorado, if only because of their market.

Would be fun to be included in this!

[krindor]

This is really interesting. I hadn’t seen this, but I did spend yesterday (this morning for most of you) putting together a 32 team superleague based on the highest drawing brands.

And it looks almost the exact same. Every team he listed is included, but a few others sneak in (Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, and South Carolina).

Mine would be more NFL-modeled with 2 conferences, each with 4 divisions of 4.

ESPN Conference
East: Penn St, Clemson, North Carolina, South Carolina
South: Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, Ole Miss
Central: Texas, LSU, Texas A&M, TCU
North: Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan St, Minnesota

FOX Conference
West: Oregon, USC, Washington, Utah
Central: Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Arkansas, Colorado
North: Ohio St, Notre Dame, Iowa, Nebraska
South: Georgia, Florida St, Florida, Miami

(There’s another arrangement of teams that I considered. Better respects history and current FOX/ESPN alignments…but doesn’t have as much geographic spread and leaves Penn St stuck in that 3rd spot behind tOSU and Michigan)

Every year you open the season by playing 2 of the 3 other divisions in your conference (rotating yearly which one you miss) and then the last 3 games are against your division foes.

These 11 games result in a ranking #1-#4 in each division.

The 12th game is a matchup with the similarly ranked team in the division you DIDN’T play that year.

This matches up (for example) #1 in Fox West vs #1 in Fox Central and #1 in Fox North vs #1 in Fox South.

The winner of those matchups play the next week in a conference championship matchup (with sizable payouts for the winner) but then they also get a bye the first week of the playoffs to make up for it.

Every #1 division winner makes the playoffs (with the CCG participants getting a bye, as mentioned) and the two #2 v #2 winners ALSO make the playoffs.

That gets 6 teams from each conference or 12 total, with 4 byes. The playoff is set up to cross-match teams between conferences right from the start (could go into more details on this, but not doing so right now).

By having the last games of the season all be the divisional matchups and having a path for the #2 team in each division to make the playoffs, there’s going to be a lot of teams left in the mix until late in the season and keep drama alive.

And pretty much ANY matchup from these 32 teams is going to draw massive ratings

[krindor]

Gets tons of money to networks ✅
Keeps regionalism and fosters rivalries (especially in division) ✅
Gives objective criteria for postseason participation ✅
Emphasizes importance of regular season while keeping playoffs an end-of-season ratings bonanza ✅

This is one of my ideas I’m not sharing on CougarBoard because the stats/numbers just don’t justify BYU being included.

If I were king of college football, what I’d love to do is set up a Superleague Level 2 with a similar setup and promotion/relegation between the two…but I can’t imagine the top Tier 1 teams (or the networks) buying off on that. Even if Alabama has a down year and finishes behind all of Auburn, Ole Miss and Tennessee (unlikely, but not impossible) the networks aren’t bringing them down to Tier 2. Or USC being demoted to bring up Stanford or Arizona. Just not happening. Even if Arizona might be better on the field, the $ and exposure makes it a non-starter

[MDUte]

So Krindor, just curious, when Utah/BYU plays who do you want to win?

[MDUte]

Awesome, I like yours even better. But the one thing that makes this whole Super League concept so great IMO is cutting out the crappy, body bag games. As you said, every single week with each game played it would be nothing but great matchups and huge ratings. Season ticket holders would have to love this because there wouldn’t be one bad game on the home schedule, let alone 3 or more.

The amount of money this type of Super League would be able to generate would be huge. And pooling everything together to put each program on an equal footing in terms of resources, salary caps, regulations for NIL/Transfer portal etc to create NFL-like parity would be epic to watch.

[krindor]

Alternate division arrangements (less balance between divisions but more respect for history)

FOX Conference
West: Oregon, USC, Washington, Utah
Central: Oklahoma, Nebraska, Oklahoma St, Colorado
North: Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota
East: Ohio St, Michigan, Penn St, Michigan St

ESPN Conference
West: Texas, LSU, Texas A&M, TCU
Central: Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Arkansas
South: Georgia, Florida St, Florida, Miami
East: Clemson, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina

[PhiladelphiaUte]

I like this one better.

That said, it’s more likely UCLA gets in, and Utah gets bumped out.

[krindor]

Yeah, I go back and forth on which I prefer. I generally like this arrangement more…but with the importance of finishing top 2 in your division I hate throwing Penn St, Ohio St, and Michigan all into the same division. Either one would work though

And yeah, Utah would barely be in for either setup, but I based it on what teams have drawn the most viewers and that includes Utah and not UCLA.

You could also consider that Colorado is only in based on 2023 Deion and so skip them, which would put UCLA in …and then Utah would have to move more Central in Colorado’s place. Which wouldn’t be as historically relevant, but we’d still be happy to be in no matter where they put us

[Extra Medium]

Let’s get relegation going in CFB. Make it a legit premier league!