College Spring Football Underway

[LAZ]

Die hard college football fans will be happy to see this:

The college football spring season began last weekend and will continue into May of 2021. The magnitude of teams participating may shock some people. 

There are 299 colleges scheduled to play over 760 games throughout the spring.

FBS - 1 team (New Mexico St)

FCS - 96 teams

NCAA D2 - 52 teams

NCAA D3 - 103 teams

NAIA - 47 teams   

[gatorman-uf]

Laz, do you think this is something that D2/D3/NAIA schools could latch onto long term? 
We have seen several professional spring football leagues (AAFL, XFL, Arena) that come and gone over the years, but there always seems to be some interest in the sport continuing past the Super Bowl. Could moving to spring for these D2/D3 schools be a way to get some marketability of their programs/some limited TV revenue? Or will D1 College Basketball/Baseball/Softball always trump lower division football?

[LAZ]

gatorman-uf,

I'd like to see it but I doubt it would be possible. Very few if any of these small schools will ever be household names. 

What I would really like to see is a leveling of the playing field. The current structure has become so imbalanced that we have been seeing the same top teams from all division’s year in and year out. There are numerous reasons but I believe changes need to be made to keep it interesting. 

FBS -  Must expand the playoff field to at least 8 teams immediately. This would help other schools by giving them something to play for and give other schools a chance to recruit better talent. Alabama, Ohio St, Clemson and a few others overwhelmingly win the recruiting war each year. This is not going to get better. Under the current format only half of the FBS programs have a "mathematical" chance to win a National Title because G5 schools are basically excluded. This should be outlawed.   

FCS - Must be eliminated. This would require an NCAA change in policy. In 1995 the NCAA mandated that any school playing D1 basketball must also play football at the D1 level. This has created a huge imbalance in the talent level of FCS teams. There are many programs playing FCS (1AA) football that should be playing D2 or D3 football. They just cannot compete. What they do get is a huge financial gain for playing FBS programs during the regular season. Obviously the $ is not being used to improve their football teams. I mean, should Miami be playing Central Connecticut State this year? Really? Who wants to watch that? Basketball schools such Butler and Georgetown most likely make use of the money elsewhere. They are never going to be football powers. On the flip side, there are several FCS schools that should be playing FBS football. North Dakota St, South Dakota St, James Madison, Northern Iowa and a dozen or so others, can easily hold their own against most of the Top 75 programs in FBS. This division actually makes no sense and needs to be dismantled. You are either D1 or you are not.

D2 - Has had various champions over the years and there is not much room for improvement other that the fact there needs to be more out of conference matchups during the regular season. Several conferences play only within the conference until the post season.

D3 - Consisting of nearly 250 schools, dominated by 20 or 30 teams that actually take football seriously. D3 is basically glorified "Club Ball." Most of the teams are slightly better than decent high school teams. IMG, St. Thomas Aquinas and Miami Central would probably compete for the national title every year. There are no athletic scholarships awarded at the D3 level.    

NAIA - Roughly 90 schools. Slightly better overall than NCAA D3 teams. The Top programs are equivalent to the Top teams in D3. Personally, I would like to see more conferences. For example, The Mid-South Conference consisted of 22 teams in 3 divisions.  

Other than that, everything is just "peachy."