With all the talking heads on TV proclaiming that this season is unlike any other, I’m curious how the community feels. Totally new landscape of CFB or just more of the same? How do we all feel about:
- Helmet communication (for only 1 player on the field per team except on free kicks)
- Tablets on the sidelines (up to 18 per team)
- The 2 minute timeout
- Corporate logos on fields (no longer requires the stadium to be named after the sponsor)
- New homes for Arizona, ASU, Cal, CU, Oregon, ou, SMU, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
- Expanded playoff (probably too early to tell on this one)
- New TV deals (SEC on ABC, B1G on CBS)
- Current season of Fansville (Ewers could be a Heisman candidate but he sure won’t be winning any Oscars)
For reference, here are the P4 vs P4 records so far:
- ACC: 6-8
- B1G: 5-5 (or 5-6 if counting ND)
- Big XII: 5-6
- SEC: 8-5 (or 8-6 if counting ND)
The conference realignment is the hardest part for me to swallow.
Granted, I’m old enough that I was first paying attention to college football when the Southwest Conference was on its last legs. I miss having conferences that were based on regional rivalries and geographic proximity, instead of wringing every last dollar possible from TV contracts. In that aspect at least, it feels more like NFL-lite than a proper collegiate thing.
I’m all in favor of things that contribute toward player safety. I also don’t mind at all players having NIL rights and making money off that. I will admit to having concerns about direct player compensation and in effect making them employees of the university. Primarily, I’m worried that at schools which aren’t flush with athletics money, this could lead to non-revenue sports getting dropped, and could also risk Title IX implications in compensation parity among men’s & women’s athletics.
I went to a D3 school that didn’t have a football team, and in the context of the changing athletics landscape I’m glad I did. My alma mater does have an NIL policy for it’s athletes including timely disclosure of all details, and warnings about tax implications, but we aren’t ever going to be wealthy enough that we’ll pay direct compensation to student athletes.