What's the next big conference realignment move that would ruin college football as we know it?
So believes Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who will continue to fiercely guard the school's football independence and embrace the notion that a true 'student-athlete' still has a place in today's pay-for-play world of college athletics.
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The end of 'college' football? Some would say we've already been there and done that. Did it after USC and UCLA decided it best to call the Big Ten home. After the Southeastern Conference became the 800-pound gorilla in the realignment room and absolutely after Cal and Stanford thought it best to become members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
All of it crippled everything we once believed or thought we believed college sports to be — storied regional rivalries that piqued national interest. College athletics — really, college football — has changed dramatically over the last few years but one change, Bevacqua believes, would doom it.
It would make it the National Football League Lite.
Yesterday for sure and somewhat today, college football still is college football. Sometime tomorrow, that might not be possible if it goes the super league route.
'I view that as almost the formation of a version of an NFL paradigm,' Bevacqua said late last month in a 44-minute meeting with five area reporters who cover Notre Dame athletics, really, Notre Dame football. 'To me, that would spell the end of what makes college football special.'
Bevacqua hears the super league whispers (private-equity firms, stay away!) and fears where this is all headed. He wants to stand up and hold up his hands. Stop everything from happening or at least slow it.
'If college football tries to imitate or replicate the NFL, it's going to fail and it's going to end up looking more like a minor-league sport, a somewhat bastardized version of the NFL,' Bevacqua said. 'We're going to lose everything that makes college football special.'
Some would say we're already there. We passed a point of no return when the Big Ten and the SEC super-sizes its leagues to 18 and 16 teams with the constant threat to go to 20 and beyond. When SMU basically blank-checked its way into the ACC. When college football became more about dollars and less about (common) sense.
All true to an extent, but do you know what else can be said about college football? It's in a good spot. Having weathered the craziness of the last couple of years, be it realignment, Name, Image and Likeness, collectives and most recently, the House v. NCAA settlement that mandated a salary cap of $20.5 million for schools to pay its student-athletes, Bevacqua believes the sport is solid.
'College football, right now, is really healthy,' Bevacqua said of a sport he believes ranks behind only the NFL, naturally, in terms of a media product. 'With this House settlement and with this (salary) cap and with some regulation around collectives, I think we could be entering into a period of stability.
'We've got to keep it going.'
When is the next seismic shift? What will it be? Who knows? We didn't see Texas and Oklahoma announcing in 2021 that it would jump to the SEC. We didn't see USC and UCLA bouncing to the Big Ten. We didn't expect the Pac-12 as we knew it to fade away.
Just don't go the super-league route, said Bevacqua.
'If it becomes all about let's get the 30 or so brands that really move the needle and create some version of the NFL' he said, 'I think we're going to ruin something that's very, very special to this country.'
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua wonders where college sports is headed
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