College Football Needs a Structural Reset

By [email protected], 4Rs.org & Heavy Or Not podcast at https://HON.LAP.red

College football sits at the center of American higher education and is a multibillion-dollar behemoth. Yet its structure is unsustainable: competitive balance is skewed, geography is an afterthought and financial disparity determines opportunity more than performance.

Long-standing rivalries have been sacrificed, regional logic has disappeared and conference membership now does more to decide a program’s future than results on the field. That demands a structural reset.

This proposal targets the core failure of the model: structure, not merit, determines who competes for championships. It offers a performance-based blueprint that realigns the sport around fairness, geography and clear paths for advancement.

By emphasizing regional alignment, promotion/relegation and annual accountability, the model aims to fire up rivalries, make every Saturday matter and forge a stable future for the game.

Today’s imbalance is not accidental. Governance decisions have distorted competitive balance, sidelined geography and treated tradition as expendable, producing inflated spending, repetitive championships for a few brands and fans who increasingly struggle to recognize the sport they grew up with.

Resource disparities now drive results. Wealthy programs outspend peers on talent, staff and facilities, locking in a self-perpetuating hierarchy. Universities feel compelled to bleed more money into football, but conference structures and postseason access mean the competitive map barely changes, even as financial pressure mounts.

Competitive outcomes are increasingly determined in conference rooms, not on the field. Conference affiliation dictates schedules, media exposure and playoff access, giving insiders room to stumble without consequence while capable outsiders hit political and financial walls.

Coaching and management still matter, but structure often overwhelms performance. In too many cases, budgets and brand strength preordain a program’s ceiling.

Realignment has severed regional rivalries and pushed schedules far from home. When structure ignores geography, the sport loses local identity, imposes longer trips on players and staff and erodes the campus-based traditions that once anchored fan loyalty.

The current structure traps many programs in a ceiling they can’t realistically break. With playoff access and media attention concentrated at the top, some schools respond by spending more in a race they cannot win, rather than competing on a genuinely open ladder.

A healthier system would reward performance with movement, giving every program a path upward instead of a permanent place in the second tier.

The proposed answer is a tiered, performance-based framework built around promotion and relegation. It seeks to restore regional logic, ensure that every game affects a team’s future and replace political access with clear rules tied to results.

Below the Top 80 sits a sub-tier organized into four regional pods. Each season, five teams drop from the top tier and five move up, based solely on results. The framework rests on four ideas: align teams by performance, prioritize geography, require annual accountability through promotion and relegation and allow movement strictly on merit. In practice, standings—not brand power—determine who plays at the highest level.

The Top 80: Eight Ten-Team Pods

Pod Name Region Teams

Block - TX/OK - Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, Houston, SMU, Texas A&M, UTSA, TCU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State

Tackle - SE - Georgia, Georgia Tech, Alabama, Florida State, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, Troy,
Miami (FL), UCF

Pressure - S/Central - Mississippi (Ole Miss), LSU, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Tulane, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Louisville, Memphis

Blitz - Plains/Mountains - BYU, Kansas, K-State, Colorado, Utah, Air Force, Wyoming, Boise State, Iowa State, Iowa 

Grandstand- West - California, UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford, Washington, Fresno State, Oregon, San Diego State

Huddle - Great Lakes - Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois

Gridiron - NE - Syracuse, Boston College, Rutgers, West Virginia, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Penn State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Liberty

Trench - CAR - North Carolina, Clemson, NC State, Wake Forest, Duke, South Carolina, James Madison, Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Vanderbilt

The Sub-Tier Pod Structure

The sub-tier is composed of four regional pods with 10 teams each, adhering to geographic logic to minimize travel and preserve regional rivalries. Of course, each institution would make a final determination for inclusion. Some may opt for indie status or different leagues and divisions. 

North East Pod

  • Army*

  • Navy* 

  • UConn

  • UMass

  • Temple

  • Old Dominion

  • Marshall

  • Ohio

  • Miami (OH)

  • Akron

  • Kent State

  • Bowling Green

  • Buffalo

South East Pod

  • South Alabama

  • Southern Miss

  • Georgia Southern

  • Georgia State

  • Florida Atlantic

  • FIU

  • South Florida

  • Appalachian State

  • Jacksonville State

  • Louisiana (UL Lafayette)

  • Louisiana Tech

  • Louisiana-Monroe (ULM)

Central Pod

  • North Texas

  • Rice

  • Texas State

  • Sam Houston

  • Tulsa

  • UAB

  • Arkansas State

  • Western Kentucky

  • Middle Tennessee

  • Toledo

  • Northern Illinois

  • Ball State

  • Central Michigan

  • Eastern Michigan

  • Western Michigan

Western Pod

  • Nevada

  • UNLV

  • San José State

  • Hawai'i*

  • Oregon State

  • Washington State

  • Colorado State

  • New Mexico

  • New Mexico State

  • Utah State

  • Fresno State

  • UTEP

Promotion & Relegation Mechanism

Promotion from the sub-tier is straightforward. No committees, no opaque selection process: standings and head-to-head results determine who goes up and who goes down.

Each regional pod holds a championship game between its top two finishers, with the four pod championship game winners get promotion and move into the Top 80. A fifth promotion spot goes to the winner of a short playoff among the third-place teams, staged at neutral sites and bowl venues.

The model leaves room for exceptions. Notre Dame could preserve its independent status and marquee schedule, but would need to play a full pod slate to qualify for the playoff. The service academies could remain independent or join the sub-tier’s Northeast pod, while Air Force fits naturally into a Mountain West–style pod.

Programs such as Hawaii could also choose an independent path built around destination home games. These accommodations show the framework is flexible enough to honor unique identities without undermining its basic structure.

Realigning into regional pods would revive local rivalries and storylines, making the sport feel closer to campus again. Fans could travel more easily, and players would spend less time in the air and more in classrooms and practice facilities.

Promotion and relegation would inject urgency into every season. Programs at every level would have something real to play for—escape from the bottom tier, survival in the Top 80 or a climb into championship contention—all determined on the field.

Tweaking conferences around the margins will not fix a system built on unequal access and misaligned incentives.

A tiered, regional model with promotion and relegation offers a clearer, fairer path forward. It would not solve every dispute overnight, but it would redirect power from closed rooms to the field itself, giving administrators, boosters and fans a concrete blueprint for a healthier sport.