Conference realignment has gripped college athletics in a way many sports fans didn’t think was possible, but UCLA coach Chip Kelly might have the best proposal yet for how to proceed.
Kelly, a longtime college football coach with plenty of experience leading athletes, was asked about the future of college football earlier this week and gave a thoughtful answer about the future of the sport.
“I think we need to have a conference commissioner and I think football should be separate from the other sports,” Kelly said ahead of the LA Bowl. “Just the fact that our school is leaving to go to the Big Ten in football … our softball team should be playing Arizona in softball. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball.
I think we can all agree that college football is flawed right now.
— Jay Tust (@KTVBSportsGuy) December 16, 2023
The game we love has become very complicated.
Well, #UCLA head coach Chip Kelly has answers.
And I think the powers that be should listen to him.
🔊⬆️ pic.twitter.com/h9BOqvTeg0
“But because football left—and they’re saying, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ Well, Notre Dame’s independent in football and they’re in a conference in everything else. I think we should all be independent in football.”
So what’s the fix? How about two mega conferences?
No, not the SEC and the Big Ten. How about a Power Five conference and a Group of Five conference?
Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports
“You can have a 64-team conference that’s in the Power Five and you can have a 64-team conference in the Group of Five, and we separate it and we play each other. You can have the West Coast teams and then every year, we play seven games against the West Coast teams and then we play the East.
“So we play Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia and Virginia. Then the next year, you play against the South while you still play your seven teams … not that I’ve really thought about this, and not that I’ve spent a lot of time on this.”
Kelly’s model would preserve regional rivalries, while keeping both Power Five and Group of Five schools in the College Football Playoff hunt.
It makes an incredible amount of sense, which is why it will likely never happen.
