Amid the latest round of ongoing conference realignment, UCLA head coach Chip Kelly posed a solution last week.
Kelly argued for eliminating conferences in college football and having every Power 5 school under one roof. It’s an idea he brought up again on Tuesday.
“I think there should be 64 teams and we should have no conferences. It should be one conference. But, no one asked my opinion so I’m gonna get ready for practice today,” Kelly said.
In addition to having the Power 5 teams in one megaconference and the Group of Five programs in a separate one, Kelly also advocated for treating football on its own and having Olympic sports remain regional.
“Our sport’s different from everybody else. We only play once a week. Travel’s not a big deal for football, but it is a big deal for other sports,” he said, via Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.
Chip Kelly said football should be uncoupled from other sports as part of his one-conference realignment idea: “Our sport’s different than everybody else–we only play once a week, travel’s not a big deal for football, but it is a big deal for other sports. So that’s my theory.”
— Ben Bolch (@latbbolch) August 8, 2023
UCLA and USC announced last year that they will be joining the Big Ten in 2024. Oregon and Washington did the same last week.
That left Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to join Colorado as Pac-12 defectors for the Big 12. Currently, there are only four schools still in the Pac-12 for 2024, and two of them–Stanford and Cal–are reportedly under consideration to be offered spots in the ACC.