Auburn football fans should be thankful that The Athletic’s Andy Staples didn’t make the mistake of his life and snub the Tigers from his rendering of a “College Football Super League.”
Granted, there are fanbases out there that have legitimate gripes with not being included in this elite group of college football institutions. Florida State–who has won a National Championship more recently than all but four of the included teams–could theoretically have a case.
But we’ll get to that later. First, let’s address what the “Super League” concept is.
Soccer, or for the purists, fútbol, recently made waves on an international scale when 12 of Europe’s biggest pillar franchises made a sport-changing announcement that they would be breaking away from their current leagues and forming a (you guessed it) Super League.
It’s not a popular concept with many fans of the sport and the figureheads of soccer’s governing bodies absolutely detest it. In fact, the vitriol for the Super League’s potential commerce-crushing decision is so profound that players taking part may be banned from international play.
Needless to say, this won’t be coming stateside to any of the four professional sports leagues nor the NCAA…but it’s fun to think about.
So let’s think about it.
Staples’ league has 15 teams, with five of them coming from the SEC (Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, and Auburn football), four of them coming from the Big Ten (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska), two coming from the Big 12 (Texas, Oklahoma), two coming from the Pac-12 (USC, Oregon), one representative from the ACC (Clemson) and one independent (Notre Dame).
Nebraska may be the most obvious team to exclude given their failure to end the season in the top 10 teams in any poll since 2002. Penn State has also been to just three bowl games in the past decade and was rocked by one of the most horrific scandals in the history of college football with the Jerry Sandusky scandals.
Either way, FWE will be sleeping well tonight knowing Auburn football is Super League material.
War Eagle!