What if college football downsized from 5 power conferences to 4?

Are four super conferences necessary?

Should collegiate conferences have the right to expand and even possibly leave the NCAA? Yes. Can conference realignment financially benefit certain universities and conferences with more financial flexibility that can directly benefit their student-athletes? Yes. However, are there obstacles and issues that will arise if four power conferences of 16 teams each are created? Yes. Will non-power conference teams face potential financial hardships if super conferences are created? Yes.

There are more questions without answers to them than many people are unaware of.

The first issue is that this popular model is that there are only 64 teams that will be picked and that there will be only four conferences. Meaning, more than likely the Big 12 would be no more and at minimum, would just add teams from conferences from the Mountain West along with the teams from the league not picked to join one of the super conferences.

The Big 12, if not eliminated by the creation of four super conferences, would consist of — for example — Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas State, BYU, Boise State, San Diego State, Air Force, Colorado State, Nevada and Utah State. If the super conferences were to break away from the NCAA, these schools potentially would not be able to play again their current rivals that their fanbases look forward to seeing those matchups.

The second issue is that Group of Five schools who through scheduling Power Five programs in their non-conference schedules, would lose a good portion of their overall athletic budget if they are unable to play schools like Texas, Ohio State and Clemson. The financial ripple effect would force athletic directors to cut certain programs as we have already begun to witness as 30 Division 1 sports teams have been eliminated over the past three months.

There have already been four FCS leagues to back out of playing fall football in 2020 and Division 2 and 3 football many follow suit and attempt to play in the spring. It’s not the responsibility of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 to financial savings and keeps afloat over schools’ athletic programs but they know that if they were to leave the NCAA, they would greatly affect college athletics across the country.

The third issue is would the newly-formed Power Four schools miss playing Group of Five schools if they were to leave the NCAA or even if they stayed, would other schools left out even want to play them in non-conference play? For example, would Kansas State still play Kansas in non-conference play? Would Baylor and Texas Tech schedule TCU, Texas A&M or Texas?

If new Power Four schools leave the NCAA entirely, would schools like Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson hate the fact that they can’t schedule FCS or Group of Five programs in non-conference play prior to beginning league play?

More questions than answers when talking about non-conference scheduling.

Regardless of what happens in the future with college football realignment, there are many positives and negatives that come with a dramatic change.

If it were to happen, there will be schools and fans who may be very happy with the creation of Power Four conferences and then there will be schools and fans who be very angry with being left out or not being able to play Power Four programs.

Time will tell and the future is unpredictable and as the old saying goes, “Patience is a virtue”.