New push for a 'super league' is not the fix college football needs

As the 2024 college football season plays out its final month, debate over the new 12-team playoff format is heating up.

Gone are the days when an undefeated power conference champion could be excluded from a national title bid. But now, speculation of whether a two-loss team could miss out has replaced them.

There will always be complaints and dissatisfaction with the system in any era, but opportunists are trying to claim the moment for unnecessary overhaul.

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd reported Thursday that chancellors and representatives from some Big 12 and ACC schools will hear formal presentations in December on two new postseason formats.

The proposed "College Student Football League" and "Project Rudy" would eliminate any NCAA oversight of the sport at the upper level of Division I.

Both would include only 70 or 80 top FBS teams to form a "super league" backed by private equity.

Per Dodd, no SEC or Big Ten schools will be present at the meetings next month, citing expressed "disdain" for the proposals.

The College Football Playoff, in which a committee determines the 12 best teams to play in a bracket-style tournament for the national championship, is still in its infancy after nearly 10 seasons.

The playoff itself was a response to cries for parity after 21 years of the Bowl Coalition/Alliance/Championship Series — a national title game designated for the top two teams as determined by polls.

Even that era was an innovation begotten from nearly a century of national champions crowned by the Associated Press and other media polls.

Evolution in how college football coronates its national champion is inevitable, but plans to limit accessibility to that title does little good for the sport.

Concern already exists over the expansive claim the Big Ten and SEC have on the playoff. Formally excluding all but the power conferences just legitimizes their claim to the game as a whole.

The only course forward is to let the playoff grow into itself organically. Expansion to 14 teams will come in 2026, and programs will adapt to the new landscape accordingly.

Name, image and likeness (NIL) payments certainly pose a complication as the game becomes more and more a pay-for-play system, but programs will adjust as additional guardrails are installed.

Eliminating the NCAA and handing the keys to the kingdom over to private equity is a rabbit hole the sport cannot afford to go down, lest it abandons all semblance of collegiate competition and becomes a junior NFL.