What if there was Promotion and Relegation in FBS College Football? (a mindless off-season exercise)

Hello, Commish here again. This idea popped into my head many times before and recently, and I couldn’t get it out of my head this time, so I just wrote it out.

Recently, I saw Ipswich Town jubilantly celebrating their promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 22 Years. Yeah go Tractor Boys! An amazing promotion from League One then through the Championship in one year to the Premier League! MP praises Ipswich Town’s promotion in the Commons

Then I saw an English National League team, Bromley F.C., celebrate promotion to English League Two for the first time in their 132 Year History. Incredible stuff. Bromley FC celebrate historic promotion with bus tour

Then, after 23 years and three bouts with insolvency, SSV ULM 1846 are back in the second tier of German football! One year after securing promotion back to the 3. SSV ULM have secured back-to-back league titles and are headed back up to the second division. (German ULM Mentioned) SSV Ulm 1846: Who are the 3. Liga winners preparing for a first Bundesliga 2 campaign in over 20 years?

This was then joined in my brain with all the talk about splitting the Group of 5 into their own division and even coming out with a Group of 5 Top 25 Poll. Then on Friday, May 10th, Missouri State announced it was moving up to FBS as the 12th member of Conference USA in 2025. Pushing FBS to 136 teams in 2025.

All of this information lodged in my brain culminated into this ridiculous post.

Now, I want to state that I am not for promotion or relegation in FBS.

I don’t think it can be done or won’t be done for a myriad of different reasons. However, this is the off-season, and there is no time like the present to write this silly little exercise, so maybe I can get this idea out of my head.

Let’s get started.

The English Football Pyramid

I figure not everyone knows how the Promotion/Relegation System works in England. I know not everyone like myself has played FIFA and developed long-lasting bonds with teams he would never visit, like relegation-battling Sassuolo in Italian Serie A (likely dropping to Serie B) and English League Two side Grimsby Town FC (narrowly escaping relegation) , along with my beloved Arsenal in the Premier League. (Please win out Arsenal and Manchester City drop points, please please please)

Above is the English Football Pyramid.

In the Top Six Tiers, you have the Premier League with 20 Teams, the Championship, League One, League Two, and the National League, all with 24 teams. Finally, you have the National League North and South, with 22 teams in both divisions combined. The Six tiers of English Football have around 140-160 teams. The Leagues below the 6th tier get crazier and harder to explain, and I don’t even fully understand them.

The main takeaway here is that they have a similar teams divided up into the Six Tiers. We now know that FBS will have 136 teams in 2025.

Time to break up FBS into different leagues based on this pyramid and then play out the promotion/relegation scenarios. To rank the 133 teams, I decided to use the SP+ from Bill Connelly. It’s my favorite ranking, and I would always scroll to the bottom to check for ULM and become fans of the teams hanging around ULM in the rankings. Then I added the 3 new schools to the very bottom tier, welcome to FBS.

Bill C's Final SP+ for 2023 (This is behind ESPN+ Paywall)

I broke up FBS as follows to try to match the English Football Pyramid.

• 20 - EPL

• 24 - Championship

• 22 - League One

• 22 - League Two

• 24 - National League

• 24 - National League North & South

I will explain the different promotion and relegation rules by each graphic. Also, I understand every team can’t possibly play each other each season like they do in the EPL.

The Sickos CFB Premier League (based on SP+)

Each year, the bottom three teams get relegated to the Championship, and the top three teams get promoted to the Premier League from the Championship.

I can almost bet the three teams you are thinking would get relegated here.

The Sickos CFB Championship (based on SP+)

The top two teams here get automatic promotion to the Premier League. Then, teams 3rd through 6th go through a promotion playoff to get the 3rd and final promotion spot. Also, three teams from this league are relegated to League One every year.

Who do you think would get a promotion here?

Not so clear-cut for the Top 3 or Bottom 3 here?

The Sickos CFB League One (based on SP+)

This is probably my favorite league in the rankings. My god, look at all the teams here. This hypothetical CFB League One rules!

The top two winning teams in the competition are automatically promoted, with the next four (3rd–6th) competing for the third promotion in the play-offs. Slightly differently from the Championship.

The bottom four are relegated. Four of these get relegated!!

This is crazy, and this would likely be the most fun league, at least in my opinion. Who do you think survives or advances?

The Sickos CFB League Two (based on SP+)

Under these League Rules, the top three teams with the most points are automatically promoted, with the next four (4th-7th) competing for the fourth spot in the play-offs. The bottom two teams are relegated. Only two are relegated here and if you drop here, it is hard to get back up.

We’ve got some teams down here that are complete wildcards. Who do you think makes it into the Top 4 to get promoted?

Sickos CFB National League (based on SP+)

The winners of the National League are promoted, and then the next six teams compete in the play-offs for the second promotion. Only two can move up here; if you’re 2nd–7th, you get to go into the playoffs to try to move up! The bottom four teams are then relegated to the North or South divisions. This feels like the quicksand league, one that would be hard to get out of.

There are a good bit of teams down here that would scramble for that playoff spot and hope to move back up.

Sickos CFB National League North and South Divisions (based on SP+)

This one will get a little confusing here, so hang with me.

The teams are split into the North and South, depending on their geographical location. Both competitions run in parallel to one another, with 22 teams each. (We only have 12 each in each division here, so we will modify it)

The winners of each division are promoted to the National League, and then the next six teams compete in the play-offs for the second promotion spot. This totals four teams qualifying for the National League.

The bottom four teams in each division are then relegated.

So for our scenario, every team in each division could theoretically play each other. We take the champions of the North and South and give them a promotion spot each. Then we can have a cross-division, eight-team playoff battle for the final two spots. The 2nd–5th place teams of each respective division would have to play each other, with the higher finisher having home-field advantage.

• 5th Place South at 2nd Place North

• 4th Place South at 3rd Place North

• Winner of each North Home game plays for a Promotion Spot

• 5th Place North at 2nd Place South

• 4th Place North at 3rd Place South

• Winner of each South Home game plays for a Promotion Spot

This would be a must-see TV event. Oh my god, think of the potential. 

For now, we won’t play with relegation from this League. This would mean getting into FCS, and this silly little exercise has gone on long enough for now…

You know I will do the FCS version eventually.