Who would’ve thought the guy from the football independent would be at the forefront of the Great College Football Reclassification (name pending)?
Speaking to CBSSports.com’s Dennis Dodd Wednesday, Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick envisioned a future where there are the Football Bowl Subdivision is further splintered into two sub-subdivisions. “There’s going to be Congressional intervention (in college athletics) or there’s going to be more than one intercollegiate athletic association ….” Swarbrick said. “You don’t like these set of rules? Go play in that association.”
Rather than the fancied have/have-not divide many envision, Swarbrick sees a split coming between public schools and privates.
“Forget the economics, the cultural divide in college athletics is getting too big. Any business association requires commonality of interests to hold together,” he said. “The Oregon and Stanford economic models are similar. Their approach to sports couldn’t be more different.”
The Great Divide is a lot like the Four 16-Team Super-Conferences idea that the guy in the next booth over warned you is coming in the next “five-to-10 years, guaranteed.” In reality, we got a dystopian future that is a watered-down version of the four 16-team super-leagues, and the future of the NCAA will likely be the same as well. The NCAA will never go away because it’s too useful to the schools, either as a shield or a whipping boy - or sometimes both.
With autonomy coming, we’ll get a future where the Alabamas and Ohio States are kinda sorta in the NCAA, but kinda sorta on their own. And you can bet Notre Dame will be with the big boys.