The University of Delaware is transitioning its football team from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). As an alumnus of two of the schools seeded high in the FCS playoffs, #1 South Dakota State and #3 University of South Dakota, I am taking notice of the Blue Hens and others abandoning FCS for a supposedly-higher level of competition. But how long will it be before the biggest boys in the FBS, such as Alabama and Ohio State, will get fed up with all these silly little teams calling themselves FBS? Some (i.e. pundits on the internet) believe the big schools will set up a new Super-FBS with the 64 or so top college football programs, leaving about 70 programs in limbo.
I'm not going to ponder (yet) whether these 70 silly teams plus the current 127 FCS teams will band together, or whether there will be three Division 1 subdivisions. First things first, what will be the structure of the new Super-FBS? Let's say there will be four conferences divided into eight divisions with eight teams each, with the current Big 10, Big 12, SEC and ACC providing most of those members. They could adopt an NFL-style schedule - seven games in division, two rotating games against teams in the opposite division of the same conference, two games against teams with a similar record in another conference (rotating each year), and one silly team tuneup game. The playoffs would be 16 teams, two teams from each division cross-seeded against other conferences. (No conference championship games.)
Throw a bone to the next 16 teams and the eight first-round playoff losers to play traditional bowls. That would only involve 24 teams versus the current 82, so that would take some figuring out whether the Famous Toastery Bowl (Dec. 18 this year in Charlotte) would take teams from the next level down or just go away.
Now this is the fun part. Borrowing from English soccer, the Super-FBS team that has the worst record over four years gets relegated. Let's say Minnesota is that team. They would get sent down to the lower level and South Dakota State could be promoted to replace them in the Big 10. According to the current Sagarin ratings which includes all Division 1 teams, Minnesota is #69 and South Dakota State is #29. According to the Sagarin formula, SDSU would be a 9-point favorite over the Goofers on a neutral field. Actually, Vanderbilt is probably the current worst so-called Power 5 team (and would be a 19-point underdog to the Jackrabbits), but I like tweaking Minnesota.
It's a pipe dream, I admit it. All the mediocre teams in the Big 10 and other major conferences would never agree to that. So, let's get back to current FCS schools moving up to FBS. On the Fargo podcast I often listen to, the participants think NDSU should just move up, even if it is to a crap conference like C-USA. Just get your foot in the door and figure it out from there. Looking back, it almost makes sense. In their transition from D2 to D1, NDSU and SDSU were part of the patchwork Great West, a crap conference if there ever was one, but one which served a purpose. Four years later in 2008, they were able to get into the Missouri Valley Football Conference. USD joined the MVFC in 2012, and UND moved from the Big Sky in 2020. NDSU and SDSU have come to dominate the conference, and the other two Dakotas are playoff teams this year. Just get your foot in the door, endure a few years of chaos, and it will all work out in the end, according to the theory. I hope whatever they do, the four Dakotas do it at the same time so we don't have this ridiculous situation where they don't play each other for 10 years.
I also want to tweak the flagship university of a state where I used to live, Massachusetts. UMass was strong in FCS, winning the title in 1998, and transitioning "up" about 10 years ago. UMass is currently 3-9, one of their better records in recent years, and does not belong to a football conference. Their current Saragin rating is #189, second-worst in FBS to Kent State. South Dakota State would be a neutral field 32.5-point favorite. Tell me whether being a bad independent FBS team was a good move for UMass. At the very least, you need a conference, even if it is crap conference like C-USA.
I think eventually there will be three subdivisions, and all will have their own postseason. The Power 64 will be #1, the bottom of the current FCS will be #3, and the question is what #2 in the middle will look like. Delaware will probably be back competing with the top of the current FCS in 10 years.
Update: The final Sagarin ratings put FCS Champion South Dakota State at #18, ahead of every G5 team and the majority of P5/P4 teams. From this part of the country, Wisconsin was #43, Nebraska was #60, and Minnesota was #77. And UMass finally did get a conference, the MAC. It's not really a geographic fit, and they are going to be one of the worst teams in the conference for a while, but they are now on the path to qualifying for a meaningless FBS bowl.
