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Too convoluted? I don't think so. Especially if the B1G and the SEC break away and the 'Super Conference' has 34 teams, possibly as many as 40 teams with the addition of Notre Dame and other immediately accretive teams. When looking at where the teams are located, pods in the NFL more or less make sense. However, every team in the NFL has a Blue Chip + roster, and the goal of the NFL is parity. Teams that underperform, like New England without Brady, play easier schedules than successful teams. Mike Whitty's goal is to achieve parity in scheduling in the Big Ten. As Mike the Hiker notes, the B1G has too many teams, as does the SEC, to achieve parity. Without salary caps, differences in budgets for football, no restriction on player movement, and the differences in money available for NIL, I don't believe any CFB scheduling model, and Mike's is as good as I have seen, will produce balanced schedules. If players are not deemed to be employees, and there is no uniform, enforceable, bargained-for agreement with the players, and uniform investment in football programs, I don't see a Northeast Pod of Maryland, Rutgers, an add-on UVA, and Penn State, being competitive with a West Pod of OBD, UCLA, USC, and UW. In a given year, a team or three in today's mega conferences will get the short end of the scheduling stick. Perhaps if one of the scheduling goals wasn't having every team in a conference play one another over a period of years, parity could be achieved? But parity would have to depend upon a team's performance in a given season, or over a few seasons. How do you factor in an Indiana? College basketball uses disclosed metrics to balance out teams based on the strength of schedule (SOS). 31-0 Miami of Ohio is not likely to be seeded higher than 9th. The college football committee simply wings it. And the CFB committee is not helped by a media company with rankings tease shows, and not the NCAA, managing the playoff. All of the supposed improved metrics in the hands of the committee still equate to how many losses a team has, except for Bama, of course. Mike's goal is worthy, no doubt. But without systemic changes modeled on the NFL format, including a draft of high school players, I don't believe we will see equity in CFB scheduling. What we could and should see is a CFB Playoff committee making its decisions based upon disclosed metrics that, among other things, make SOS a determining factor when deciding on and seeding the PO field. Good luck.

💯 agree. I advocate a football only super conference once the current grant of rights deal(s) expire…until then we deal with it.

That would really muddy the water. It is unrealistic to think that every Division 1 team is financially capable of competing at an elite level in football, basketball, and Olympic sports. NIL is a game changer, and creates a huge void between the haves, and have nots. NIL is not going away, any interference will be challenged in court. If they truly want to save Olympic sport competition at the college level, Universities need to have the financial ability to provide elite level training and facilities in those sports. Sprinkle in a few more Universities, and two mega conferences probably achieves that financial viability. The biggest hurdles are the BIG and SEC agreeing on anything, and then getting the media networks to work together.

Peyton Bair with the huge projected point get! Football helping T&F...

All my bags are packed; I'm ready to...? Is it time for the Power 2 to take a powder? https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2026/03/10/what-did-sec-big-ten-learn-at-president-trump-roundtable-its-time-to-go/89072802007/?utm_source=usatoday-sports-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_cam

Heading into Spring practice, CBS Sports has B1G questions - OBD - Will all of the talent show up? https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-football-spring-2026-burning-questions-each-team/?ftag=SNL-04-10aaa0b&ET_CID=531873&ET_RID=52482716

GatOrlando I'm having a problem wrapping my brain around four five-team pods, assuming the B1G expands to 20 teams. I expect that expansion to happen. I have this old-fashioned idea that to have a fair regular season every team in a division or pod, if you will, should play the same teams in a round-robin format. How do your pods address that standard?

Agree on the obvious dilemma created by a conference with too many teams, but divisions could make matters worse by locking in the schedule imbalance year after year. At least the current situation allows the imbalance to rotate around. I have no sympathy for this topic. Each school is raking in cash no matter the schedule or the results. Unbalanced schedules is a 100% predictable result of having too many teams in one conference.

Tough to make it fair when you don’t play half the conference every year. Conferences/leagues of a certain size need to have divisions to at least try to make things “balanced”. This isn’t some new radical concept…there is a reason the NFL has 2 conferences and 8 divisions for only 32 teams. We have a nationwide conference with 18 teams and no divisions. Probably not a good model for fairness.

There are many things we can say about the NFL, but there are many things the college game can take from it as well. As Mike wrote in the article, giving higher performing teams tougher schedules is a great step. Of course you can't always have Purdue missing out on playing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, or Oregon. They need to play at least one them in addition to Indiana (as their protected rivalry). But since the CCG may go the way of the dinosaur if Petiti gets his play-in weekend passed. You could do four pods, and a two team relegation where those teams have to play their way into a pod to get a shot at play-in weekend, or just add two more teams to get to a five team pod. You could have a heavyweight in each conference, and then do the rest by strength and geography. The relegation model is a bit tricky, but you could base it off a two year stint. I think the five team pod is just simpler, and no I'm not for the B1G kicking out programs, as relegation usually means doing just that. I simply think programs should be forced to at least use their resources, and not just be comfortable being a B1G member. The five heavyweights would be the best five programs over a five year period. For example, USC would've been one in the late 2000s, but Indiana would take their place as of today. Maybe my idea is too convoluted, I'm just trying think outside the box.

Predicting Oregon's offensive two-deep ahead of spring practiceHere is our best guess for what the Ducks' offensive two-deep will look like following now that spring practice is closing in. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/longformarticle/oregon-ducks-ducks-football-depth-chart-2026-season-277064403/

Oregon Football reveals updated 2026 coaching staffThe Oregon Football program formalized the updated 2026 coaching staff. DuckTerritory overviews the full list. https://247sports.com/college/oregon/article/oregon-football-coaching-staff-updated-2026-reveals-277097734/

Guys to watch to step up: Na'eem Offord, Dylan Williams, Douglas Utu & Elijah Rushing Four Under-the-Radar Returning Players to Watch for Oregon This Spring

Offense's two (or three) deep Predicting Oregon's offensive two-deep ahead of spring practice

To piggyback off your post, and see how crazy the landscape of college football is today. We thought Oregon joining the B1G was nuts, imagine being a singular school jumping up a whole division, and joining a conference with the nearest member being over 2,000 miles away. I don't imagine the MAC pays out like the B1G either. https://www.carmichaeltimes.com/2026/03/09/566187/hornet-football-to-join-mid-american-conference

More on Miami-Ohio https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/miami-ohio-football-spending-nil-transfer-portal/

THE MEET STARTS 3/13

Now, form charts turn out true about as often as our March Madness brackets do. You have false starts, injuries, sickness...or an athlete has a bad day for your team. Or the other teams have a bad day, that opens the door for your team. That happened in the B1G Womens Indoor Championships, as ChileDuck told me that "Illinois has a powerful team this year, and I don't see the Ducks passing them." Then he texts me on Friday to explain that some Illini female athletes did not come through with the points expected....and there is a crack in the door for Oregon. Well, the Women of Oregon busted through that door to win the B1G Indoor Track Championship along with the Men! You can see the form chart predictions below, thanks to ChileDuck. The top one is the Mens, and the bottom shows how strong the Womens Illinois team is. Go Big-10!

Not so Fast! It looks like the Left Coast Women's teams didn't get the memo. OBD, UCLA, perhaps the No.1 seed, USC, and UW are all headed to the NCAA tournament. Stuff happens.

OREGON ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | MONDAY, MARCH 9, 2026 BASEBALL | @OregonBaseball Laya Claims Second B1G Freshman of the Week Honor EUGENE, Ore. – Four weeks into the season, Oregon true freshman Angel Laya has now claimed the Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Week honor twice. Laya’s latest award came after a big week in a midweek game against Oregon State and a weekend conference series win at Purdue. Laya continued his hot start slashing .400/.500/1.133 with a 1.633 OPS in Oregon’s four games while belting three home runs and scoring six runs. He was instrumental in securing a road conference series win at Purdue by slashing .364/.500/.909 with a 1.409 OPS while hitting a pair of home runs and scoring four runs. Angel Laya at Purdue In Oregon's series-clinching win on Sunday, Laya homered twice while going 4-for-5 with four RBI and four runs scored. In a Tuesday matchup with No. 18 Oregon State, the Ducks' right fielder homered and tripled while going 2-for-4 with three RBI and two runs scored. On the season, Laya did not strike out until his 39th plate appearance of the season and has just three Ks in 61 plate appearances while slashing .370/.443/.778 with a team-high six home runs. 2026 Laya Honors Co-Big Ten Freshman of the Week (3/9/26) Live Like Lou Las Vegas College Baseball Classic All-Tournament Team (3/1/26) Perfect Game National Freshman of the Week (2/17/26) Big Ten Freshman of the Week (2/16/26) Oregon All-Time Big Ten Freshman of the Week Honors Angel Laya (3/9/26) Angel Laya (2/16/26) Burke-Lee Mabeus (2/24/25)

5-Star Recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson Makes Announcement With Oregon, USC, TexasFive-star safety recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson has made an announcement about his commitment between Oregon, Texas, Miami, USC, LSU and Notre Dame. The highly-touted recruit has made his decision between his six finalist schools and will announce his commitment live on the CBS Sports College Football YouTube at 12 p.m. PT on Saturday, March 14, per his Instagram. Oregon Ducks On SI5-Star Recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson Makes Announcement...The nation's No. 1 athlete and five-star safety recruit Honor Fa'alave-Johnson has made an announcement about his commitment between Oregon, Texas, Miami, USC,

Mike, spot on, citing Penn State's schedule. And Notre Dame? The Domers have a Golden path to the playoffs. On3Notre Dame, Georgia and, yes, North Dakota State among 6...Entering the 2026 college football season, there are six schools currently favored in all 12 of their regular-season games.

Good luck, yuck, yuck 😁. The NCAA Been There, Done This and Paid BIG Legal Fees to No Avail - On3Donald Trump proposes return to pre-NIL era, wants to 'ra....

Beat the Twerps, er, Terps! On32026 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket: Finaliz....

The affect of this season's injuries: