Chansky's Notebook: Almighty Dollar Wins

Now, a 12-team college football playoff makes sense. Sort of.

We all figured a super conference would be coming someday, but weren’t sure how football realignment would go to form it. The ball began moving down the field when Texas and Oklahoma decided to bolt from the Big 12 to join the Southeastern Conference.

That would give the SEC 16 schools, which could corner most of the TV money by declaring itself a super football league that plays outside the domain of the NCAA. So here are some options.

Most prominently, in order to save the rest of college athletics, basketball would remain in the NCAA. The Big Dance could distribute its $700 million or so in revenues to the schools through whatever conferences they wind up in. The College Football Playoff does that now and should continue to help fund Olympic sports programs.

No matter how many schools end up in this Super Football League, there will be other conferences that can still have football teams that play their way into the College Playoff. That is where the 12-team format came from, so the Super SEC can get as many as are deemed deserving to be there.

If it adds Texas and Oklahoma for the time being, there won’t be a limit as to how many SEC teams can make the playoffs. Say four from the expanded SEC are picked by the committee, eight more can come from the ACC, Big Ten, Pac 12 and what’s left of the Big 12 and A-A-C, which is the best football league in the so-called Group of 5.

Jay Bilas, who is a basketball maven, is advocating for the ACC to merge with the SEC, so Clemson, Florida State, Miami and Carolina will still have fair shots at making the playoffs and the big money. If that were to happen, this Super Conference would have 30 schools and likely be allowed to send six or eight teams to the CFP.

That would leave four or six spots for the champions of the Pac 12, Big Ten and whatever other leagues morph out of the schools that don’t make this Super SEC-ACC Football League.

It may be a mess now, but the almighty dollar will sort it all out.

Photo via Butch Dill/Associated Press.

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Chansky’s Notebook: Almighty Dollar Wins

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