Relegation

I was listening to one of my favorite hosts, Chris Childers on my favorite satellite radio station channel 91, College Sports Nation yesterday.  He was talking about how college football should institute relegation like English Premiere Soccer League does.  I had never heard of it before, but it totally  makes sense.  Basically, with the power 5 or autonomous 5 conferences, whatever you want to call them, associate those conferences with one of the lower FBS conferences.  For example, Pac-12 with Mountain West, B1G 10 with MAC, SEC with Sun Belt, ACC with AAC and Big 12 with Conference USA.



So how it works, the last place team in the power 5 conference at the end of the season is moved down to the lower conference and the winner of the lower conference is moved up to the power 5 conference for the next season.  At the end of the next season, the last place team is moved down and the winner of the lower conference is moved up.  In order to stay in the power 5 conference you have to remain out of last place and the only way to earn your way back up to the power 5 conference after being relegated is to win the lower conference.  An example would be with the Pac-12 and Mountain West.  Let's say at the end of the 2015 college football season Colorado ends up in last place in the Pac-12 and Boise St wins the Mountain West.  In 2016, Colorado would now be playing in the Mountain West conference and Boise St would be playing in the Pac-12.  Logistically it might be difficult because of schedules being made so far in advance, but I think it could work where in this scenario, Boise St and Colorado would just exchange conference schedules and keep their non-conference games in tact.

I really, really like this idea.  There are a lot of bottom feeders in every conference that are horrible and will probably never get better.  By being relegated to a lesser league, they actually could win more games, which might help the school sell more tickets, make the alumni happy, and could possibly help in recruiting.  It also helps the power 5 conferences have much better games and makes the conferences stronger.  The best reason for relegation is that it gives really good teams in lesser conferences  a chance to prove themselves and actually have a chance to play in the playoffs.

Relegation will probably never happen, but it would be awesome if it would.