Tired of nonstop realignment? UCLA’s Chip Kelly may have the common-sense solution
https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2023-08-04/chip-kelly-college-football-realignment
Chip Kelly has a solution for all the crazy cross-country travel, not to mention the century’s worth of rivalries and tradition torn asunder by
ceaseless realignment in college football.
Are you ready for a dose of common sense?
One conference. Every team. Divisions are aligned by geography.
"Do it like the NFL, where there’s NFC West, NFC North, NFC South where it’s the same thing and then we all get together,” Kelly, who coached for four seasons in the NFL before coming to UCLA, said Friday morning. “But I think there should be one conference in all of college football and just break it up like they do in the professional ranks. … That makes the most sense. There’s your travel question, there’s all those other questions.”
Traditionalists can only daydream about such simplicity, especially after Oregon and Washington were cleared to join UCLA and USC in the Big Ten Conference in 2024.
The departure of the Ducks and Huskies could spell the end of the Pac-12 since further defections are almost assured. Meanwhile, Florida State officials have publicly stated they’re looking to bolt the Atlantic Coast Conference in hopes of a more lucrative future, even reportedly engaging private equity firms as potential investment partners.