Analysis | ODU Unfiltered
Three proposals are moving through college athletics governance right now, and none of them were designed with mid-major programs in mind. One is nearly official. One is advancing quickly. One just got a formal endorsement from the most powerful coaches association in the sport. Together, they represent a pattern worth paying attention to: the people making the rules are the people who benefit most from them, and they are not waiting around for G6 programs to weigh in.
Here is what each one actually means.
Tournament Expansion: More Teams, Fewer Opportunities
The NCAA Tournament is expanding from 68 to 76 teams as early as 2026-27. More teams in March Madness sounds like good news. It is not — at least not for mid-majors.
All eight new spots are at-large bids. None are automatic bids, and that distinction is meaningful to mid-major programs. Every Division I conference currently gets one automatic bid, awarded to the conference tournament champion. That guaranteed entry is the lifeblood of mid-major relevance in March. It is the reason a Sun Belt champion walks into the bracket on the same footing as a Big Ten runner-up, regardless of what the selection committee thinks of its schedule. The automatic bid bypasses the gatekeepers. It rewards winning a conference. It is what we are all playing for.
What would a mid-major-friendly expansion look like? It would add automatic bids for regular season champions too, ensuring that a team that dominates its conference all season isn’t sent home on a bad day in a single-elimination tournament. That would be real help. Instead, what the NCAA is proposing adds eight at-large spots that will flow almost entirely to Power conference bubble teams whose metrics look better because they play each other. Take a look back at recent years’ bubbles. You will see how this plays out. The selection committee has always had a Power bias. Eight new committee-controlled bids just enables that bias.
Meanwhile, the format change may actually hurt mid-majors more than the bid structure does. The First Four grows into a "First 12" — a 24-team preliminary round before the real bracket begins. That means more mid-major automatic qualifiers bumped into play-in games, fighting for a spot that used to be guaranteed. The first-round matchup between a double-digit seeded mid-major and a one seed — the game that produces Cinderella moments and stops the country at the nearest television screen — becomes less common. Gonzaga's Mark Few called the expansion "totally unnecessary," which is both partly self-interested and entirely correct.
The 5-in-5 Eligibility Rule: Watch This Space
The NCAA is advancing a new model: five years of eligibility, all five playable, no redshirts, no medical waivers. The window starts when a player turns 19 or graduates high school, whichever comes first. An executive order signed in April pushes for exactly this, which gives the NCAA both pressure and political cover to move quickly. Implementation by 2026-27 is possible.
Before anyone gets too excited or too worried, here is the necessary caveat: this rule will be challenged in court. The NCAA's track record of enforcing eligibility-related restrictions in the litigation era is not good. The rule may survive. It may not. It may look completely different by the time it takes effect. Proceed accordingly.
Assuming it does hold up, the mid-major implications cut both ways. The concern is the minor league problem getting worse — Power programs with $20 million rosters scooping up developed mid-major players, while smaller programs do the developmental work is the reality now.
The potential upside is the one-transfer rule being advanced alongside this proposal. Right now players can transfer freely and repeatedly, which has made roster construction feel like a game of hot potato. If the one-transfer limit holds up in court, the cascading lateral transfers from mid-major players chasing a slightly better NIL deal at a peer program become much harder. Players would have to choose their spots. That would be a positive change for mid-major programs trying to build continuity. Whether it actually happens is the question. File it under "worth watching, not worth celebrating yet."
Eliminate Conference Championship Games? G6 Programs Should Be Alarmed.
The American Football Coaches Association voted this week to recommend eliminating conference championship games. The AFCA has no binding authority, but these recommendations tend to reflect what the people who do have authority are already thinking. And the context makes the direction clear: the Big Ten's 24-team CFP proposal includes eliminating conference championships and replacing them with more playoff games. Power programs get more high-stakes football. The conference championship weekend disappears. And G6 programs — which had nothing to do with designing any of this — get a 23-plus-1 format where all 60-plus of them compete for one playoff spot.
Here is the question that nobody in Power conference offices will ever ask: what are G6 programs playing for in this model? Most will never reach the CFP — that has always been true. But the conference championship game is a goal. It was revenue. It is a nationally televised stage. It is something a program could build a season around and a fan base can celebrate. The Sun Belt Championship matters to ODU. It matters to Troy. It matters to every program in this league. Take it away and the end of the G6 season looks like this: a mid-December bowl game in a mostly empty stadium, against a program you have never played, with half your best players sitting out to protect their portal deal. That is not a reward. That is a crappy exhibition game.
If this comes to pass, G6 programs need to stop waiting for an invitation and build their own postseason. We laid out that case in our mid-major manifesto earlier this year — a G6 playoff beginning the week after the CFP's first round that is open to the one G6 team that earned a CFP bid and lost in the first round. That is a real reason to play the season with real stakes. It is not a consolation prize. It is what self-determination looks like for a tier of college football that keeps getting told to be grateful for the crumbs it is fed.
The Bigger Point
None of these proposals were specifically designed to hurt mid-major programs. That is almost the problem. They were designed by people who do not think about mid-major programs at all, solving problems that matter to the Power Two, with the G6 as an afterthought at best. The tournament expansion provides opportunities for mediocre Power Conference teams. The eligibility model stabilizes Power rosters. The CFP expansion gives Power conferences more playoff football. Mid-majors are along for the ride, and the ride is not going anywhere great.
The decisions being made right now will shape the next decade of college athletics. The window to influence them is open. It will not stay open once the contracts are signed and the formats are locked in. Mid-major fans, athletic directors, and conference commissioners need to be in this conversation — loudly, collectively, and with a clear sense of what they are actually fighting for.
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