The Necessity of a College Football Promotion Pyramid

By Brendan Lands | Senior Staff Writer

October 17, 2024

The Premier League is one of the most popular sporting leagues in the world. The fans are loyal, passionate, and energetic; however, they are second only to one fanbase: college football. American football fans altogether are passionate, but when it comes to college football, the loyalty is unsurpassed. There is nothing better than an insane upset in an underdog’s home stadium, where fans rush the field, the band plays full blast, and the goalposts ultimately end up in some river by the end of the night.

Despite the unmatched atmosphere, college football has one major flaw: it is dominated by a few teams year after year. The thought of some team from the MAC (Mid-American Conference) winning an NCAA championship is ridiculous. 

College football is also outrageously unbalanced; you have a roster full of future NFL stars playing for Alabama going up against Princeton’s roster of future accountants.

The English Premier League offers a solution. There are four separate leagues in the professional football pyramid and many other leagues in the semi-professional and amateur pyramid. Each league is separated by the quality of teams; the higher up you go in the pyramid, the better the teams are. The best part is, that teams do not have to be stuck in one league indefinitely. A team that has one of the most impressive records in their league at the end of the season is in luck: the top two teams are promoted to the next league up. Conversely, the bottom two teams of a league get demoted.

With that being said, I have a proposal of my own. There are 134 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams in college football; this is the highest level of Division One college football in the U.S. These teams are divided into 10 different conferences. These conferences are historic; they have their own history, prestige, and records. I propose that the FBS split these teams into four different leagues, made up of roughly 35 teams each. The conferences already give us an easy starting point and can help keep many teams together, so traditional matchups and rivalries will not be completely erased. The highest-ranked teams from each league will get promoted each year, and the lowest will be demoted. This structure will give teams something more to play for each season and make every game matter.

Across the pond, your team getting promoted in the Premier League is a lifelong memory. That’s what sports should be all about; winning gives everyone that sense of accomplishment. Small, low-tier teams from England could never compete with the powerhouses in Manchester and London, but that doesn't mean that their fans had to be robbed of the chance to express their pride. The pride of knowing that you stuck with a team through its highs and lows, supported them, waited for this moment, and finally, can become a champion.

It’s unfair for the championship feeling to be reserved only for the powerhouse schools: Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Michigan. These teams know what it’s like to win. When will the fans of the MAC ever get that feeling? Frankly, it’s driving fans away from the sport. There’s no passion in the air in Athens or Oxford because there is nothing to play for. These fans know what to expect: at most, they can have a decent season with only a couple of losses to Power Five teams and maybe even win their conference. In the grand scheme of things, what does that type of expectation really change? It won’t make their program any better. No recruit is going to choose to play for Troy just because they won the Sun Belt last year. These teams are stuck in a perpetual cycle of mediocrity.

With a promotion pyramid, small teams can get national recognition. Once they start moving up, better recruits will commit there. Their team can continue to improve, and they have an opportunity to literally move up in the ranks instead of remaining gridlocked. It’s not to say that instant change would be easy, because it wouldn’t. It would still be a grind for teams to advance, especially with 30+ other teams competing against them; however, it just brightens the light at the end of the tunnel. It gives those schools desperate for victory a chance. It would foster passion, interest, and devotion to the game. It would take the most exciting and unpredictable sport in the world and bring it to new heights. There’s an opportunity here for American fans to experience something they have never felt before; the promotion pyramid is just waiting to bring passion, victory, and accomplishment to the world of college football.

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