The Verge: The next 35 years of college football, predicted

[dcpony]

The Verge
The next 35 years of college football, predicted
By Ryan Nanni on August 21, 2015 01:47 pm

College football thrives on disorder — far more so than its professional counterpart. This is a sport that, for decades, could not find a way to have the teams ranked first and second play each other at the end of each season.

Once its overseers solved that uncrackable puzzle with the Bowl Championship Series, the sport's best minds faced the quandary of what to do with more than two undefeated teams. Conference realignment, clumsy internal rule enforcement, a playoff run by the same people that, just years earlier, insisted a playoff was unworkable and dangerous: the sports skews toward a consistent, almost genetic, affinity for chaos.

College football is inherently unpredictable. Motivated by that guiding principle, I've tried to predict what will happen to the sport over the next three decades. The future I'm proposing may not come to pass, even in part. But it's certainly weird and crazy and drunken enough to consider as reasonable a possibility as any other.

PHASE ONE (2018-2019)

It begins with the NCAA losing a court case. Take your pick: uncompensated use of player likenesses, the ability for student-athletes to unionize, or the antitrust claim arguing scholarship amateurism is an unlawful restraint of trade. One case will end in a very bad ruling for the NCAA and dramatically reshuffle the power relationships in college football, especially where the distribution of money's concerned.

PHASE TWO (2019-2023)

COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAS AN AFFINITY FOR CHAOS
Though there's always been some question as to how profitable college football programs really are (thanks to accounting cleverness and the desire for athletic departments to look like non-profits and not lucrative businesses), the new costs of increased player benefits prove to be overwhelming for many universities. Some schools shut down teams immediately, convinced that the numbers won't ever work in their favor. Others attempt to soldier on for a while, find themselves ultimately unable to compete in the changed recruiting landscape, and decide to fold. This winds up being one of the most heartbreaking and difficult periods in the sport's history, and once the dust has settled, the number of FBS teams has been cut roughly in half, with just 60 teams or so remaining.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/21/91877 ... redictions