Four Downs: Football's Changing, The Best Names Big Board

I don't really hate the Super League as much as I hate the name of it. But I think I'd still take it over what we have now.

Image via Unsplash / Dave Adamson

First Down: Different Football

ON RULES CHANGES, JUST IN GENERAL

Football’s going to look different in 2024.

Doesn’t matter what level you’re referring to and it doesn’t matter what old-looking football you’re initially harking back to when you say such a thing, but I don’t disagree with anybody saying that either.

Football, somehow, is going to look different again in another six to 10 years. If not it’s not drastic moves at one level, it’s alterations and quick fixes that’ll affect every division of the game.

NFL KICKOFFS

As long as the new model ends up being a fun alternative to the new bored-out way of doing kickoffs, then I’m totally for it. Not a fan of the NFL only being 5-toes down about the change and it’d be funny if the league could just commit to the new model full-stop instead of letting things go to a live ratings review before kickoffs in 2025 are decided on.

Seriously, it was cool with the XFL tried it out. I didn’t end up being an spring football diehard because of it, but it’s not hard to enjoy the different look. It actually gets the game going in a recognizable fashion, so why not? If football would’ve had this from the start, I think it would’ve saved the sport a lot of headaches over the years.

HIP-DROP TACKLES ARE 86’D IN NFL

Doesn’t make defensive players’ lives any easier, but nothing in the 2000s has been about bending the rules in favor of the defense.

THE SUPER LEAGUE

The Athletic broke the story on College Sports Tomorrow’s idea of an 80-team Super League that included permanent memberships and a relegation system while all players get paid directly for the sport.

The Group of 5 teams all get to swim in the league of promoted/relegated teams. The group or league or whatever for 2023 would’ve been determined because by 2022’s results; Toledo and Ohio would’ve been in the same league as Navy and Tulane from the American, North Texas from C-USA, Boise State and Fresno State from Mountain West, and Coastal Carolina, Troy, and UTSA from the Sun Belt. In this 2023-like scenario, SMU’s not an American team, it’s in the Southwest Conference with Texas and Oklahoma, which means the Tulane loss in the real-life AAC title game means nothing here. The champion of this tier islikely to take one of the top-8 seeds of a 16-team, which is actually pretty exciting to think about.

A second team in the playoff? I think the answer to that, as always, is ‘good luck with that’, but also I’m not immediately unhappy with where a very-deserving G5 team could end up in all of this.

And, if The Athletic has this right, the MAC would be able to have *three* teams in this tier if we had these rules today:

For those of us who love Group of 5 ball, this is an entertaining, competitive division with high stakes. Tulane wins the division and playoff berth. A key question: Would stakeholders allow wild cards from this division, or would those eight playoff spots come from the permanent 70 only? That’s an unknown. Let’s again follow typical college sports power broker behavior and assume only the division winner gets a nod here — an unfortunate break for Toledo. Here’s hoping we’re wrong and wild cards from this division get equal consideration.

Details on how many teams would be subject to relegation are scant, so let’s assume teams with losing records get the boot. That means Navy and North Texas would get sent down. Which two teams get promoted into their spots? The teams with the best 2023 regular season records who aren’t part of this group are Liberty (12-0), James Madison (11-1), Miami-Ohio (10-2), New Mexico State (10-3) and Memphis (9-3). Liberty and JMU get the call up to the big show.

Second Down: These are the best names in the Draft

Lots of big boards are out there, but this might be the most important one. Here’s my big board. It’s my 25 favorite names in this year’s NFL Draft class:

• Chigozie Anusie (CB, Colorado State)

• Gottlieb Ayedze (OL, Maryland)

• Steele Chambers (LB, Ohio State)