“For lack of a better term, we have a football problem.”

Or, to put it another way, the wolves are tired of the squirrels telling them what to do and the NCAA wants to wash its hands of the entire affair.

College football has always been a class war: public vs. private, Power Five vs. Group of Five, SEC vs. the world. Membership has always had its privileges. Those 65 Power Fives schools annually split 78% of the half-billion annual take from the College Football Playoff.

There is a growing thought among those power schools, which are wondering whether they should share at all. What has emerged quietly in recent months is perhaps the biggest class war in decades.

“Membership” is the buzzword as the NCAA rewrites its constitution. It would involve a further divide among the 130 schools playing major-college football. Division I-A, now called the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), was created in 1978. That was the last big carving of haves and have nots.

Essentially, a parting from the lowest-resourced programs in the FBS could occur. The reasons would be same as they were 43 years ago: The smallest programs have too much of an influence — voting and otherwise — on how a group of 80 or so schools would like big-time football to look.

“I think that discussion is going to happen,” a current Power Five athletic director told CBS Sports. “In FBS, yes. The discrepancies in terms of revenue, just among FBS, is already huge. But from the Big Ten to the SEC to the smallest conferences in Division I, it’s not even apples and oranges.

Gosh, whoever thought money would be at the root of the matter?

The Transformation Committee is co-chaired by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Ohio AD Julie Cromer. By its mere composition, the committee foreshadows a separation. Sankey is head of the nation’s most powerful football conference. Cromer is AD of a MAC school, which plays some of its games on weeknights to maximize exposure.

SEC schools will soon be making $60 million each in average media rights fees annually.  The MAC’s current ESPN deal, which expires at the conclusion of the 2026-27 season, is worth $100 million … total.

“Anything that has Sankey in it would give me an indication that the divide will get greater,” said a college sports consultant who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the situation.  “Julie being at Ohio, I really like Julie. She’s smart as hell. I would see her and Sankey clashing big time. I suspect that’s the case, but Greg’s going to win every time because he can. He’s got the power.”

Sankey has a massive TV contract and he knows how to use it.  Like this:

Consider top schools voting to increase their allotments to 95 football scholarships. (The current maximum is 85.) Those that couldn’t afford to fund those 10 extra scholarships would be priced out of the market and possibly end up in “Division IV”. Same for the idea of fully-funding equivalency sports. Those sports include baseball and soccer, which can have large rosters but split a finite number of scholarships. (For example, Division I baseball teams divide 11.7 scholarships.)

What if those minor sports were fully funded with scholarships the same as “head-count” sports such as football? It would conceivably force smaller schools to drop down a level because of the increased financial obligation.

“Can you imagine if Georgia, in that hotbed of recruiting, basically had 100 scholarships?” asked that Power Five AD.

I’m trying to imagine how your typical Gator fan would react to that.  But I digress… happily.

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