The End of an Era!  

As July 1st approaches, college sports as we know it, will quietly shift away from the traditions that we've known for decades.  Frankly, I don't like it!  Being a former Big 10 football player at the University of Illinois, our goal every year was to win the Big 10 and qualify for the Rose Bowl.  Once that goal was achieved, we'd be slated against a PAC 12 opponent and hope to bring back the Rose Bowl Title to the Midwest.  

Now we have Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC joining the league and will have cross country travel to play these football games and all the other sports.  I am one that still can't stomach Nebraska being in the Big 10, so to have these 4 join the BIG 10 and the teams from the PAC 12 joining the BIG 12/ACC or if you're WSU or Oregon State being left in the abyss.  The question I ask is why?  The answer is $$$$!  Coach Chip Kelly who left his HC position at UCLA to move to Ohio State to be the offensive coordinator (Which is a fundamental problem that is wrong with College Football) may have said it best.  Make football its own league and leave all the other sports in the traditional conferences that we love and support.  

It makes no sense for the UCLA woman's volleyball team to travel to Rutgers for a conference match-up and vice versa.  So, follow Coach Kelly's blueprint and take the top 70 football programs and break them down by region and have them play within their region and two games outside each year, sounds to me a lot like NFL Football.  The one reason I could live with this is that it will leave our Conferences intact for the other sports.  We can still have the rivalries that have been part of the fabric of College Football and may make new ones moving forward.  Being the father of a potential D1 Baseball player I am all in on keeping the conferences. 

Remove the NCAA as they have been as useless as boobs on bull and create a Czar of football.  Barry Alvarez would be ideal to move this in the right direction.  College Football is the money maker that funds a very high percentage of University Athletic budgets.  In this system, they can still drive money to their programs, and we can still have our traditional conferences and keep some of the fabric of college sports.  I will save the NIL discussion for a later blog!  

Go Illini! 

Mike Scully

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