D1 going back to 105 football scholarships

[D2Rover]

Is it too late to fix the geographic insanity at this point? If football had already been separate, the PAC-12 never breaks up. But if NCAA conferences are driven by MBB in the near future, I don't think Colorado, Utah, and the AZ schools are giving up playing Baylor and KU every year to play on the West Coast. The other 4 leaving the Big10 seems unlikely too, especially if Arizona and Utah won't be back.

I still agree football (at least for the Power 4) needs to break away from NCAA, but I don't think that just fixes all the damage it's done. That goes for geography, and for things like NIL/Transfers. They might slowly return to reason over time, but nobody is going to immediately undo what has recently been done.

[Herb Street]

Is it too late to fix the geographic insanity at this point? If football had already been separate, the PAC-12 never breaks up. But if NCAA conferences are driven by MBB in the near future, I don't think Colorado, Utah, and the AZ schools are giving up playing Baylor and KU every year to play on the West Coast. The other 4 leaving the Big10 seems unlikely too, especially if Arizona and Utah won't be back.

I still agree football (at least for the Power 4) needs to break away from NCAA, but I don't think that just fixes all the damage it's done. That goes for geography, and for things like NIL/Transfers. They might slowly return to reason over time, but nobody is going to immediately undo what has recently been done.

This is 100 percent about media advertising revenues. Sports is practically the only thing that consumers watch live anymore. Gambling is a big part of that.

And media's ONLY concern is maximizing revenues from advertising. They don't care about specific schools, other than what those schools represent in terms of national eyeballs. They have to have premium content, with the widest possible audience, to sell advertising at a premium price. So it's not a slight against North Texas and Troy; it's only about numbers.

I could make the argument that blowing up the Pac 12 will, in the end, be harmful to overall national ratings, but I can't blame USC, UCLA, UW, and Oregon for going somewhere that doubles their revenue overnight.

It is possible, perhaps even likely, that major college ball will evolve into one league with 50-60 teams, one commissioner, with collective bargaining and equal revenue sharing. I would guess that most coaches actually want this. While Illinois is quietly happy with the amount of Big 10 dough they are getting, I'm sure they would much prefer to take somewhat less, if they are on an equal financial footing with Ohio State and Michigan. Otherwise, we are down to about 8-10 programs that can realistically compete financially, with a bottomless pit of money to play with.

When we get to one league and 50-60 programs, regionalization will happen again, and it should.