Paul Finebaum addresses Trent Dilfer, 18-month timeline to dawn of college football super league

UAB head coach Trent Dilfer got some attention last week for comments he made on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning‘ regarding the future of college athletics. Predicting that in 18 months time a super league will be fully formed between the country’s top Power Five athletic programs separate from the Group of Five resembling a professional sports league based on inside knowledge he’s heard.

Like Dilfer, ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum also recently joined ‘McElory and Cubelic in the Morning’ and reacted to Dilfer’s claims.

“Well I think he’s right, it is going to go down and I’m not sure about the timing either Cole,” Finebaum said. “But let’s quit kidding around, we have the haves and have nots now and for the Group of Five now they don’t need to be bidding for that one [College Football Playoff] spot. I think they would be a lot happier and their fanbases would be a lot happier trying to have their own championships.”

The 2024 calendar year will represent at monumental one for collegiate athletics, as every Power Five conference will look different thanks to nationwide conference realignment. With the biggest programs and brands in college sports coming together to make the top conferences even stronger.

Many have wondered where this leaves the Group of Five conferences, especially in college football.

The College Football Playoff also expands to 12 teams this season, with one spot specifically designated for the top Group of Five program in the nation. But Finebaum believes that moving forward that these smaller programs should give up on this new tradition continuing, and that Group of Five programs do not belong among college football’s top programs in the future.

“I said something to Greg last week on his podcast about the Group of Five, and every time you criticize the Group of Five you get the three or four fans from Tulane coming after you and then the Boise State crowd, everybody in Cincinnati,” Finebaum said. “But the fact of the matter is they have played great football and they have been outliers and have made noise occasionally. But the Group of Five just simply doesn’t belong in the same tournament with the SEC and the Big Ten.”

Group of Five teams upsetting Power Five teams in any sport at the college level has always been one of the more unique and treasured parts of college athletics that’s not as commonly seen at the professional level. But a super league or conference in the future would abandon this tradition, a future that Finebaum has no qualms about when looking ahead at the subsequent years of collegiate sports.

“And you can accuse me of being haughty and elitist, but I’m just telling the truth and I think what Trent said to you guys is where they belong. It least it would be competitive, it would be entertaining as opposed to what we saw in the Liberty game last year and in too many games in the past. It’s a big story when one wins or comes close because it happens so infrequently,” Finebaum concluded.

Liberty’s 45-6 loss to Oregon in this year’s Fiesta Bowl drops the Group of Five’s record versus the Power Five in New Year’s Six bowls to 4-6 across the last decade of the four-team College Football Playoff.

But with the sport as a whole going through drastic changes regarding conference realignment, NIL, and the transfer portal it will surely be interesting to see how the Group of Five holds up in the next two College Football Playoffs. As their performance could impact the future of college athletics as the formation of an eventual super leauge seems somewhat inevitable.