2StripesCPD Digital, Vol. 3

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I grew up reading Sports Illustrated religiously, and loved opening the mail each week just to get my hands of each new edition of the magazine. I still have a couple boxes that are filled with my favorite covers and articles that I'll cherish forever. It's a shame that SI and other sports magazines have mostly died out, but it was an inevitable step in the evolution of how we consume news in the age of Twitter and other online news sources. I still think the spirit of delivering a weekly news recap, plus thoughts/opinions/whatever you want to call it in that form still holds weight, though, and that's exactly what I want 2StripesCPD Digital to be.

I've been kicking around this idea for a while now, to the point that I already made and posted graphics of two digital covers I've done the past few months as promo (hence why this is Vol. 3 and not Vol. 1):

Here's want I want 2StripesCPD Digital to be:

• A place for me to catch you up on different college football news each week without overloading you with multiple emails. Maybe it's re-alignment news, a coaching move, or a key player getting injured in spring practice. Whatever it is - I can riff on it, give you my perspective, and keep you up to date on what's going on around the sport.
• Catching you up on stuff might've missed from me. Maybe you didn't get to the 'top-25 non-conference games of 2024' piece I wrote earlier this week. I've linked to it below, and will do that each week with all the content I make here and on my YouTube channel.
• Linking to other people's college football work that I like. This will never be an aggregation column, but I want to show love to the other people around the college football internet whose work I enjoy. For example: My buddy Kyron Samuels is killing it right now with his site, The Pulling Guard, and you should check it out for all things football, both college and pro:

The Pulling Guard | Kyron Samuels | Substack

Welcome to The Pulling Guard, a weekly (sometimes more) newsletter about all things football, culture, and media. The majority of content is free; however, scouting and in-depth film breakdowns are exclusive to paid subscribers. Click to read The Pulling Guard, by Kyron Samuels, a Substack publication. Launched a month ago.

SubstackKyron Samuels

• One highlight reel you should watch each weekend. Self explanatory!
• Finally, A preview of what's coming next on 2StripesCPD, and my YouTube channel.

I'm planning on dropping a new Digital edition every Saturday until the season starts, and I hope that it'll be informative, entertaining and a cool spin on the old weekly sports magazine style. Welcome to 2StripesCPD Digital, Vol. 3!

Is a college football super league on the horizon?

The Athletic had a column this week about a group calling themselves "College Sports Tomorrow," hatching a plan to form what would essentially be a college football super league. The group –led by college presidents and executives around the sports world– is set on a model that would kick the NCAA andthe current College Football Playoff to the curb. It aims to provide what they think are solutions to potential future lawsuits, as well as untangling the mess (depending on your perspective) that NIL and the transfer portal have become. The only thing I really care about here is what it would look like on the field, though, and here's my understanding of how it'd work:

• The top 70 programs (Everyone who was part of the Power Five before the Pac-12 dissolved, plus Notre Dame and SMU) would be permanent members.
• These members would be grouped in seven 10-team divisions (sounds like the way conferences should have just stayed the whole time!) with an eighth division of teams consisting of the rest of the current FBS (AKA non-power five) that would be promoted from a second tier.
• This group of tier-two teams could reach the top tier by a promotion-relegation system every year, similar to what happens in European soccer. But, there's a caveat.
• No matter how shitty the tier-one (AKA Power 5) teams might be in a season, they're in no danger of being relegated. For example, Vanderbilt could go 0-12 and they'd be in no danger of being relegated. Only teams in the eighth division comprised of tier-two teams would have to worry about that.
• As for how the playoff would work: No more selection committee. The 16-team playoff would consist of the eight division winners and eight wild card teams, the latter determined by record and tiebreakers.

If you're interested, The Athletic also put up a piece about how this system would've played out last season.

As of now, it sounds like the Big Ten and SEC are playing coy so as to not piss off their television partners. There are mountains of red tape involved with this many entities involved, and more importantly this much money. Maybe this isn't the exact system we end up with, but I think we've all seen enough over the last 15 years to let us know that when a plan is already this fleshed out, we're barreling towards it in some fashion.