With just 32 spots available in USA TODAY Sports imagined National College Football League, some of the bigger and more successful programs in the Bowl Subdivision were bound to be left on the cutting room floor.
While these teams may have made the grade for many of the elements weighed for inclusion in the NCFL, including recent track record and fan support, they failed to check the boxes for other factors under consideration, such as location and marketability.
And in a few cases, exclusion from the NCFL resulted from the head-to-head comparison with another program in the same weight class. This includes Arizona falling short to rival Arizona State, or TCU getting tapped ahead of several other options in Texas and neighboring states.
These noteworthy programs just missed the cut for our elite college football league:
Iowa
The Hawkeyes lost the debate to Nebraska due to the Cornhuskers’ broader national appeal. Last season, for example, Nebraska was one of 11 teams in the FBS to play in three or more games watched by at an audience of least four million viewers. Iowa had one such game (Penn State). Even as Iowa dominates this divisional rivalry, the NCFL model favors the Cornhuskers.
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Baylor, Houston, Oklahoma State
Three programs were considered in place of the Horned Frogs. Baylor fell short for being unable to deliver a market not already covered by the state’s biggest programs. Likewise with Houston, which wouldn’t be able to bring home an audience not already pulled in by Texas A&M and Texas.
Maryland, North Carolina State, Virginia
There wasn’t space for more than two teams from the region, which is part of a broader statement on how the balance of power and fan interest in college football has drifted away from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and firmly toward the Southeast and Midwest. Virginia and North Carolina State were eliminated in the head-to-head comparison with Virginia Tech and UNC, respectively.
The other half of the SEC
While seven current SEC teams made the 32-team list, that still leaves out half of the nation’s strongest conference — Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. The last to get cut from this group were the Razorbacks, Wildcats and Rebels.
