What doesn’t make a lot of sense, though, is how it’ll work for sports that aren’t football — and Alberts concedes this point.
Since the news broke, a collection of Oregon’s softball players have taken their frustrations public. Having to go cross-country multiple times per season isn’t exactly a palatable thing, nor does it jibe with the Big Ten and NCAA’s message that student-athlete well-being and welfare are always top-of-mind.
“I think those concerns are valid and they’re real and they need to be addressed,” Alberts said. “I don’t think it’s sustainable. I will say, I think there’s some short-term strategies that we’re already working on with the Big Ten in ways that we can alleviate some of those concerns.”
But what about the long-term future?
Alberts proposes an ideal that’s more transformational than what’s currently happening — and it’s one I think will come to fruition someday. Maybe not exactly how Alberts envisions, but in some related version.
“This is my own personal opinion, but I think the future has to contemplate football being taken out of the mix,” Alberts said. “We’re moving to a 35 to 40 top brands being part of something. If you just look at football in isolation, eventually conferences will matter less in a sense. If we can find a way to take football and have that be this entity here, I think then you can get back to doing some much more intelligent thinking around the rest of the sports, which should be regionally based.
“All of these moves are driven by one sport. That’s football. And the football schedule is much different than a tennis schedule or a golf schedule. So these Olympic sports, the travel looks a little bit different. … We’re not there today, but I would think in the next 10 years, that reality makes more and more sense.”--Nebraska AD Trev Alberts interview by Amie Just, Lincoln Star Journal.
Why, oh why ten years? I think, but I'm not positive, that I know the answer to this question: Is there any media that broadcasts only B1G golf? Or SEC women's soccer? Or ACC gymnastics? I am pretty sure the answer to that question is "No". So why, oh why, do we have those sports play universities grouped together for football? This isn't nuclear physics and it damn well shouldn't take "10 years" to figure out.
