UCLA Football: Chip Kelly Makes Wild Pitch For Future Of College Football Conferences

Would this idea save college football?

With the UCLA Bruins win over the Boise State Broncos this past weekend in the LA Bowl, the Bruins now wave goodbye officially to the Pac-12 Conference. They will be heading to the Big Ten next season, adding more talent to an already stacked conference.

UCLA head coach Chip Kelly believes that it is sad the Pac-12 will no longer be around, but he advocated for another idea. He pitched that there is one Power 5 Conference in college football.

"I think we should all be independent in football," Kelly said. "You can have a 64-team conference that's in the Power 5 and you can have a 64-team conference in the Group of 5, and we separate it and we play each other."

Per Chip Kelly via ESPN

This idea isn't the worst one yet and could be very intriguing if done correctly. We would get even more incredible matchups, and the definition of a national champion would mean more.

If teams were playing against different opponents each season, it would likely bring in more viewership and ratings. This is the entire point of making moves like this, so it would benefit the sport as a whole.

"You can have the West Coast teams and then every year, we play seven games against the West Coast teams, and then we play the East," Kelly said. "So we play Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia. Then the next year you play against the South while you still play your seven teams. You can play a seven-game schedule, you can play four against another division opponent, and you can always play against one Mountain team every year so that we can still keep those rivalries going."



Per Chip Kelly via ESPN

You can keep some of the historic rivalries, such as USC vs UCLA for example, but the other games each year would be different. This could help circumvent any unfair advantages that some conferences have over others, and make college football a more level playing field.