<div>There has been a great deal of talk lately about massive changes to college football that go well beyond the impactful conference realignment that we've seen play out over the past decade.<ul><li>The most recent concept was reported earlier this week by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. Project Rudy, as it is called, devises a 70-member structure with three unique tiers all powered by a structure of relegation. </li><li>Last week, we heard of a similar 72-member concept from an organization called College Sports Tomorrow as reported by Nicole Auerbach.</li></ul>I'll leave the deep dive into those proposals to others, but both clearly represent a drastic change to college football. I have two ideas that (I think) would do a better job of addressing the real desires out there without undermining college football as a whole. In a post that I completed years ago, I envisioned a 20-team model where 20 of the best college football teams take a temporary leave from their conferences to play in the top level. Teams move into and out of that level each season based on some sort of relegation-based system. You can read that old post here. This post is the second idea.First, here's my read on what the real desire is:<ol><li>Make some serious money using the best college-level players. Yeah, I know that's obvious, but it's worth noting that this energy isn't being towards professional sports or some other endeavor. There's money interested in this specifically.</li><li>Consolidate the most valuable brands so they meet each other on the field more often to drive more interest. This presumably means putting the best players on the field against each other more often to drive more eyeballs -- including many viewers who don't have much of a connection to colleges at all.</li><li>Trim as much of the fat as possible in the process.</li></ol>I think we can all see that this is trending towards a situation where players are employees without any other tie to the universities that they represent -- likely not even being students there. Whether they are willing to say it or not, the real desire is to build college football into NFL-Lite. Well, instead of doing that, let's just build NFL-Lite from scratch.Building NFL-Lite using college players but not college teamsSo... Let's use the college football structures to build a 20-team league where none of the teams have an explicit tie to a specific university.The trick will be getting heavy involvement from the college football world and maybe even the NFL -- this can't be the XFL trying to compete with all other forms of football. So, each team will be part owned by an NCAA conference with that conference selling the TV rights to their home games. Each team -- or franchise -- should have an outside owner who profits from gameday ticket sales, concessions, merchandising, and team sponsorships.The Players (literally)Players in this league should be the best of those who would otherwise be playing in college, so:<ul><li>Any player who has NCAA eligibility remaining can retain that eligibility while playing in this NFL-Lite as long as they are enrolled at an NCAA school. We should presume that their class load would be very light in the fall (if at all) but more like a typical college student in the spring. If they don't make the cut for whatever reason, they would presumably be welcomed back to their home school to play on scholarship there.</li><li>NFL franchises can retain a limited number of players who aren't on their team's roster (presumably drafted players who aren't quite ready for NFL), who can be assigned to these teams based on a typical waiver selection process. NFL teams should be forced to pay them a salary that is below the NFL rookie minimum of $700K but still a very good living.</li><li>There may be a handful of players remaining who are good enough to play against players like the ones mentioned but still not good enough to play in the NFL.</li></ul>Think about which players would be playing in this NFL-Lite league. Unless we're talking about a generational talent, it won't be unproven freshman. It also won't be those 5-star recruits who weren't able to get it figured out in a few years at the college level. It will be high performing college players who have had enough success at the college level to attract a bit of a fanbase. In the new world of transfers and NIL, odds are those players are far more likely to transfer to another school and need to re-engage with a new college fan base. Instead, they would retain the connection to their original school while playing with and against the best at the college level.The league would also have a limited number of successful college players who were drafted by NFL teams but weren't quite ready to play at the NFL level yet. They would still have a lot of goodwill built up with college fans. In the right environment, they could attract viewers.The Players (figuratively)Structuring a small league in this way means all of the interested parties could be involved:<ul><li>Networks will have high profile players all playing against each other on big stages. They'd also have a bit more leeway to schedule those games in ways that schools might not like.</li><li>Conferences would have incentive to make it work if they can be convinced that network dollars will roll in.</li><li>Schools could see on-campus traditions continue unabated by continuing changes in the structure of college football. They'd also be able to pitch to recruits that if they really light the world on fire at their school, they'll have a direct path to play with and against the best at the pre-NFL level right from there.</li><li>Players who think they are the best of the best (how many of them don't) would have that top level to shoot for no matter where they decided to commit to. And they'd have their fallback of playing on that traditional college team as a pretty good fallback.</li><li>NFL power brokers would get an even better development league for top level college talent as well as recently drafted players who aren't quite ready without a ton of direct investment (unless they wanted to be involved directly).</li></ul>Imagining itNFL-Lite league games should target Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening. On Friday and Saturday, this could include limited use of that late window that the networks love to fill. With each of the conferences owning a package of broadcast rights - and presumably selling it along with conference games - the network airing the games could line up conference games during to day that would feed into the NFL-Lite games that evening. ESPN could line up Florida State and Florida games at 3:30 on ABC and ESPN with that evening window being an NFL-Lite game including a team in Orlando -- which would almost certainly include a few players who caught fire for the Seminoles and Gators in recent years.And, yes, obviously, give us a really involved playoff structure too. 10 of the 20 teams. 16 of the 20. Heck, give all 20 teams a slot for all I care.Just for the purposes of imagining this league, I looked at the largest media markets without an NFL team and removed a few that seemed to be uncomfortably close to current NFL franchises or even each other. Just to see the illustration, here's what I came up with:West South Midwest EastPortland Albuquerque Columbus NorfolkSacramento Oklahoma City Grand Rapids RaleighFresno San Antonio Milwaukee Greenville, SCSan Diego St Louis Louisville BirminghamSalt Lake City Memphis Harrisburg OrlandoIn case you are wondering, all of those markets are bigger than New Orleans, Buffalo, and Green Bay and half are bigger than Cincinnati, Las Vegas, and Jacksonville (at least as the Designated Market Areas are measured by Neilson).To be clear, this is a cash grab. Conferences and the bigtime investors who are drawn to college athletics will be making money off a bunch of college-age athletes. The good news is those athletes would be getting their fair share too. They'll also have the fallback of playing at the college level under scholarship if things don't go their way.This should also address the desire to continue to consolidate college football "brands" more and more -- continuing to cut into what has always made college football special. Fans looking to watch the best college-age players on the biggest stage would have that in the NFL-Lite league while alumni and fans of a specific school should be able to get back to a world where the things that are most important to them -- tradition and rivalries -- with the vast majority of players who remain at college.</div>

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Build NFL-Lite... Outside of CFB

There has been a great deal of talk lately about massive changes to college football that go well beyond the impactful conference realignment that we've seen play out over the past decade. The most recent concept was reported earlier this week by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. Project Rudy, as...

Build NFL-Lite... Outside of CFB

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