Speculation around budding mega-conferences in college football have dominated recent conference media days, with no signs of the chaos slowing down.
One of college football’s greatest ambassadors and prominent analyst Tim Tebow has just one wish when the dust settles from the madness.
“The one thing that I would really love to see as such a diehard fan of college football is I want to see the rivalries and the traditions stay,” said Tebow to Mackenzie Salmon on USA TODAY’s Sports Seriously show. “I know that there has to be change and I think sometimes change can be a good thing. But let’s keep these awesome games. Let’s keep the Army-Navys. Let’s keep the Florida -Florida States, let’s keep the Florida-Georgia. Let’s keep all these great rivalries.”
“I still want on Thanksgiving weekend to be able to watch USC-UCLA and all the amazing games. And so I think that is one of the lifebloods of college football, is those traditions and those pageantries.”
The 2007 Heisman winner wasn’t ready to agree with Saban’s comments that mega-conferences could create a ‘caste system’ in college football, but stressed that the ‘final product’ mattered above all.
He did stress that he believes College Football Playoff expansion is inevitable with the changes taking place in the sport.
“Let’s just say it breaks down into three mega conferences. I do think that you’re looking at a bigger playoff because I think it’s gonna be so hard. You’re only gonna have three [mega] conference winners?” said Tebow. “I do feel like it sets up more for a bigger, larger playoff.”
You can watch the full ‘Sports Seriously’ interview here: