Conferences Can Now Eliminate Football Divisions as Soon as This Season

We're getting pods, folks.

The NCAA Division I Council relaxed its restrictions on conference championship games, eliminating the requirements that a conference must either have two division winners meet (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, PAC-12) or play a round-robin schedule to have the teams with the two best records play each other (Big 12). It's expected that the four conferences which currently use divisions will move to a pods system as soon as possible.

It will take at least least another year to modify the schedules and introduce pods, but the Pac-12 has already announced it will be scrapping divisions this upcoming season and allowing the teams with the two highest winning percentages to play in its championship game.

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This is all I've ever wanted. Tennessee playing Alabama every season while Georgia and Florida get to miss the Tide for five years at a time is ridiculous. Teams in the same conference should be playing each other. And in the SEC's case in particular, the additions of Texas and Oklahoma will make for some awesome pods.

Most importantly, this just makes everything more fair and fun. You'll see your school play every conference opponent at least every other year. Players who stay four years will play in every stadium in the league. This is what conferences should actually look like.

I will miss the perennial chaos that was the ACC Coastal, though. We have one last chance to achieve the seven-way tie. That's how that division must go out.