How a two-conference college football model could create 'mini-conferences'

As the Big Ten and SEC get ready to expand to 18 and 16 teams, respectively, the idea of a two-conference Super League has been thrown around. The two leagues are widely viewed as being at the top of college football between expansion and their lucrative media rights deals, not to mention the fact that they’re working together as part of a joint advisory group.

On3’s Andy Staples recently pondered what a Super League model would look like with ESPN’s Cole Cubelic. But when asked by an Andy Staples On3 viewer about potential playoff models, the AP’s Ralph Russo brought up an interesting point.

What if a two-conference model winds up creating “mini-conferences?”

“At its core, I hate the whole concept of just two conferences and everybody is either SEC or Big Ten,” Russo said. “We might be heading in that direction. As you and Cole said … do we have Super League and we don’t even know it? Like, is Super League here, but we’re just not aware of it? But that’s besides the point. I don’t love that concept as a whole.

“What I do like is if you do this by division, what you’re sort of doing is recreating conferences, right? Because you’re doing 8-10 teams in a division that are regional, it’s almost like you are having the SEC and Big Ten banners above these mini-conferences that go back to being regional, and then those divisional playoffs that he’s talking about become like conference playoffs.”

The Big Ten and SEC are both doing away with divisions next year, although the former is adding four teams from the West Coast in Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington. But if a Super League model emerges and the league adds, say, more Western teams and more on the East Coast, Russo argued it might make sense for a revamped divisional setup of sorts. That’s similar to what Staples and Cubelic brainstormed for the two-conference model with 24 teams apiece.

It wouldn’t necessarily mean the return of conferences – sorry, Pac-12 – but rather “sub-conferences” or divisions that resemble a professional format.

“I’ve actually thought that that could be the future of college football – that at some point, these conferences become so big that they actually have to roll back the expansion,” Russo said. “And it doesn’t mean recreating the Pac-12. It means recreating a Western sub-conference within the Big Ten.

“So … I kind of like where Willy’s headed at as far as that’s concerned – that these conferences become so big, you end up recreating regional sub-conferences within them.”