No Quarter wrote:Samurai Stang wrote:EastStang wrote: Perhaps at some point the P5 schools will adopt a Premier League approach.
Why would P5 schools ever vote to potentially downgrade their own programs? That makes no sense and it will not happen.
Before the ship wrecks that started our 2014 football season and the current dither about the next coach there were some posters who said we'd have to lawyer up and go to court. To me, admittedly with no legal smarts, it seems there should be a defined path whereby G5 schools could be added to the top level and not have to take the crumbs forever. It might well have to be coupled with the have nots refusing to schedule P5 schools until a way is established. Let the bottom third of the big boys stew in loosing records and maybe they'd come around.
If the additions to the top level were based on existing P5 teams sponsoring or supporting entry, then the SMUs are probably sunk. In Texas I am sure that the legislature would try to force Houston, UNT, and UTSA to schedule in state P5 schools and I imagine that would be true in Cali and Florida also. And if there were a vote, guess who UT, ATM, and TT would favor?
I like the Premier League idea - relegation and promotion - although I'm sure such a thing would lead to more courtroom time ICW college athletics than anything we've seen. Still, if legal action could force the creation of that model it might be our best bet.
The NCAA is a membership organization, not a state or national government entity. On top of that, each conference is independent of one another. There is no legal argument to "force" a conference to create rules for equal access/opportunity to join said conference.
Now, if you can prove that each independent conference somehow created artifical restraints on trade by working together to do something harmful to competition, you might have a Sherman antitrust case. But the problem there is that each "G5" conference, and thereby each G5 team, signed the new CFB Playoff agreement, whereby G5 conferences (except for legacy Big East teams) will have greater access and a greater share of the profits than they did under the old BCS system.
So where is the restraint on trade? If anything, the new landscape helps most G5 programs (with the exception of Cincy, Uconn and USF, who have lost out on tens of millions of dollars that they earned under old system).
Relegation/promotion, while fair, will never happen in the NCAA. I know "never" is a strong term, but I will use the term here. Conferences have only once dropped a member involuntarily, and that was Big East - Temple. I am sorry, but no matter how much worse Wake Forest is compared to Florida St, the ACC will never drop or relegate a member university in favor of promoting another. Realignment is different, where programs may be poached from a conference, which in turn opens up a spot for another program (see TCU).
Lastly, the legislative solution is probably the most likely, and I would call that a big longshot as well. Large, land-grant universities carry the political juice in most states. Small, elite private schools do not. There are only a handful of states without P5 access, so if a senator/member from one of those states speaks up, perhaps you will see some hearings or investigations. Orrin Hatch made a lot of noise when Utah and BYU were excluded, although Utah has landed safely in the PAC. I would think Senators from Nevada (UNLV, U Nevada) and Connecticut (UConn) could make some noise, and would have a valid argument that there states are losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the CFP argreement. But your typical state, like Texas or Ohio, will cater to UT, TAMU, Ohio St, etc.