Removing guardrails from the championship game is seen as uncontroversial and will likely be rubber-stamped, allowing conferences more freedom to approve novel means to determine a winner. Specifically, the modification would let conferences remove divisions, a proposal that has gained traction in recent years.
Current NCAA regulations require any football conference with 12 or more members to host a championship game and divide teams into divisions with round-robin seasons for divisional opponents. In 2016, the NCAA established rules permitting conferences with less than 12 members to conduct conference championship games, paving the way for the 10-member Big 12 to hold a championship game between its top two regular-season teams.
In the midst of the transfer portal era, the two-year blanket waiver to erase the 25-man initial scholarship counter would be a more important development. Per recruiting cycle, programs may only add 25 scholarship football players, including high school prospects and transfers. A roster can be decimated and unable to fulfill the 85-scholarship maximum during a period of significant transformation. The additional COVID year of blanket eligibility impacted scholarship calculations, particularly if athletes transferred to use their fifth or sixth season.
If the waiver is approved, programs will be able to fill these vacancies substantially faster during the next two years. In the age of transfer portals, it might allow more high school recruiters to discover FBS chances in a market that is suddenly more transfer-friendly.
